Customer Reviews

Cracking the ACT, 2010 Edition (College Test Preparation)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having had to retake the ACT after 18 years, needless to say I needed help. Bought three books: Cracking the ACT Princeton 2003 edition, The ACT for Dummies, and The Real ACT Prep Guide. Went through all of these books. The one that worked best for me was Cracking. It gave practical advise on how to improve my scores. Tactics were what it was all about. Although knowing math equations may be needed by some people in the future, for me it was getting a higher score. This book did the trick. The other two books helped as well. Ranked in order of importance: 1. Cracking 2. ACT for Dummies 3. The Real ACT. The last one has three practice tests. So if you want to practice taking the test I recommend it. DO NOT READ THE PREP PART OF THIS BOOK!!! It is not a helpful study guide. The ACT for Dummies was pretty good about giving some hard material that you need to know. But I preferred to use the tactics provided by Cracking.

All in all, if you are going to buy one book to prepare for the ACT, get this one. But you have to know your own mind and how it works. Did not use some of the suggestions put forth by this book (especially in the science area). For me I needed to read the science passages to understand how to answer the questions (scored 27 on this section).

Outcome: Scored a 20 cumulative when I was 17. Scored a 26 cumulative at age 35.

I am a private math tutor and author of Math Study Guide for the SAT, ACT and SAT Subject Tests: 2012 Edition. I sometimes use the practice tests in this book as a warm up for students and then follow it with the official practice tests found in The Real ACT Prep Guide: The Only Guide to Include 3Real ACT Tests. However I found two errors in the math tests in this book:

pg 445 problem 39. The answer is C, not H.

pg 453 problem 58. The answer is -12/5. This does not match any of the answer choices.

As an ACT Tutor, I have found this book most helpful to use with my students. From math strategies to punctuation technicalities, this book covers it all. The Science section is extensive, and very helpful as it is bursting with strategies. The practice tests provided in the book are of moderate difficulty. I recommend this resource to any student who wants to be prepared for all 5 test sections and get inside the heads, per say, of the test writers. As the ACT is very time pressured, learning Princeton Review's strategies would be very beneficial to students. I also recommend this resource to any tutor or parent that is looking to help a student prep for the ACT exam. ACT prep can be rather arduous, but is always rewarding--good luck!

Stacy Padula, Author of Montgomery Lake High #1: The Right Person

I purchased this book in June 2010 after my son took the ACT test in April and again in June. In April, his composite score was 20 and in June it was a 21. Beforehand, he had gone through the three practice tests in the "Real ACT" book, and he also used the study advice given by "Dissecting the ACT 2.0" by Rajiv Raju and Silpa Raju.

I decided to purchase the Princeton Review book for him to study over the summer since we were out of study material. My son read the material in the "Cracking the ACT" book cover to cover, and he raised his scores significantly after taking the two practice tests in the book. In Reading on one of the tests he scored a 27, and on the second practice test his composite score was a 28.

We were feeling pretty good about his chances to raise his composite score significantly on the September 11 test date. Then, one week before he took the test on September 11, I had him take another practice test from the makers of the Real ACT -- it was old, from 2004, but I had him take it anyway, as a final practice. He did worse on every test -- so badly that I didn't have the heart to tell him how badly he did - and decided to just let him take the test based on what he had done on the Princeton Review tests. By that time it was less than one week away from the test date and there was really nothing I could do. So I was just hoping the real test result outcome would be different - and of course it wasn't. My son scored a composite 20 on the September test, so there was no improvement whatsoever.

When he scored significantly higher on the Princeton Review tests, that should have been a warning sign to me that something was not right - but I thought it was because the tips in the book were helping him! No, the reason was the practice tests in that book are much easier than the real ACT tests.

My advice is please don't waste money on Princeton Review. Buy the Real ACT practice test book and hope the three practice tests in there will be enough preparation for your son or daughter. The "Dissecting the ACT 2.0" was also helpful. It gives URL's to other Real ACT tests that you can get online.

If you are still really set on purchasing this book, don't bother with the edition that has the DVD. That also was a complete waste of time and not worth the extra money.

I hope you can use this information for your son or daughter to get the best score possible.

I love the book. It makes studying for the ACT interesting. I enjoy the inserted humor.

The 2 practice tests in the 2010 edition are new- different than the 2009 edition, at least in the parts of them I looked at. The math seems a bit harder now, which I think is good, since I thought the old edition's math was too easy compared to the real test. The math review in the beginning walks you through most of the math topics needed, with a question or two on each one as soon as they teach it, and about five short mini-tests (maybe 5ish questions each) at the end of each major topic (pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, trig, etc).

Overall I think it's a good basic review book. I wish they had another practice test or two though. The 3rd online test cannot be printed and you only have one year of access to it, so I didn't really care for it.

good book - one two three foour five six seven eight nine ten ele twe thi fourt sixt sevent fgg edfg gsfggd gdfgdfgd

Raised 4 points in Math.
Composite from 25 on my practice test to 28 on my 1st ACT try.

Only looked over the math section in the week before the ACT though.
And looked through the Reading tips which didn't help much.

I'm going to try to actually use it the way it was meant to be used for the next time I take it.

I'll update with what I got on my 2nd ACT try.

I like the guide a little late on the review but it helped me out. This alone wont give you everything but it was fairly easy to use and understand. I would def put this in the top 3 to study for the ACT. If you have been out of school for a while this helps alot to "remeber" things you may have forgotten over the years.

Received this quickly, very well packaged. Book in very good condition. Just what I expected.