Customer Reviews

Cracking the PSAT, 2004 Edition (College Test Prep)

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

 

 

This book was a great help to me in my PSAT prep last summer. My family did a lot of traveling so I was unable to take my school's PSAT/NMSQT prep class; instead I bought this book and read it in the car during my family's road trip. I found the grammar review sections to be particularly helpful to me because I'd forgetten a lot of little things since covering that in my english class. The practice tests also helped me prepare for College Placement Tests the following year.

If it makes any difference to you, this was the only preparation I did and I scored a remarkable 224 out of a possible 240 points.

The book had its problems. My copy had 2 pages that were almost totally blank; there had been an issue in printing. I also spotted a pretty bad mistake in one of the geometry review examples, but I emailed the publisher about it and it should be fixed in any future editions.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who needs a quick, effective review.

This book was wonderful--my score from sophomore year to junior year jumped 41 points to score in the top 5% of the nation (I'm waiting on National Merit Semifinalist qualification in the fall). I seriously attribute how well I did on the PSAT to this book. It offers great tips on how to pace yourself depending on what score you're looking for. All in all, this is a great book to get before you take the PSAT for real.

When I first aquired this book I was under the impression that I had purchased something with a substantial amount of information and practice. Woe and behold, in several hours I managed to complete 90% of this book.

First and foremost: This book uses so much space that it could probably be rewritten again in a smaller font between the lines. Now it's fairly important to space things clearly to insure an enjoyable reading experience. However this book simply created these spaces for the obvious reason of wasting space. Page 142 for example has two problems on the entire page. Fine, I understand if the margins are for solving the problems, but they could have of very well put in another problem right below the first two. There is more than enough space.

Furthermore the strategies and the review provided is acceptable at best. There was no real shocker or score raiser in this book. If you're already scoring fairly high on practice exams/real exams then this book will offer little help. The sentence completions and verbal reading sections are small, poorly designed and offer few examples. The math section covers only basic topics, and provides at most two or three insightful review options. The grammar section is the second best after math, but it too has too little in terms of actual coverage.

The only saving graces in this book are the actual practice tests and problems offered. The few questions that are given are fairly accurate and well written. But that is quickly destroyed by the fact that the practice problems don't have explanations, only answers. Wonderful! Now I can tell where I went wrong for sure! Finally as for the vocabulary section, well quite frankly it stinks. Not the selection of words, but their presentation. The definitions are alright, but no sentence is offered to provide clarity. They tell you to find someone who can put the word into a sentence or to look it up. Good idea, I'm going to spend the better part of my study time looking up sentences for words!

Therefore this is a poorly designed book for long term study and inadequate for medium range studies. I can only recommend it if you have a short period of time left before you need to take the test. Lastly the actual $20 that it's sold for in stores is pathetic. You can buy books with ten times the information provided in this book for $15, the average price for review books in general.

-M.S.

This book was a really quick and easy book to go through, although it would have been nice if there were more than just 2 practice tests. Also, there were only about 3 errors that I found, which is a really low number compared to others I'lve gone through. The techniques vary in wording between the other books, but the ideas are pretty much the same. This is probably the fastest book to get ready for the PSATs, although it would be nicer if it had more practice tests.