Customer Reviews

Cracking the PSAT/NMSQT, 2008 Edition (College Test Preparation)

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Like all of the Princeton Review's "Cracking the [.....]" study guides, Princeton Review's Cracking the PSAT book offers lots of sound, helpful, and at times quite clever tips for doing well on the exam. However, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to buy any book on the PSAT since the PSAT is simply an abbreviated SAT exam without the essay. Instead, buy the newest edition of Cracking the SAT, which will give you the same excellent preparation materials, and which you are going to need in a few months anyway for taking the regular SAT. Your school will give you a practice PSAT exam to familiarize you with a length and format of the exam, and since this is an official exam put out by the College Board, it will be the most similar to the actual test that you can have.

I bought this book based on the reputation of the Princeton Review. However, it did not live up to my expectations. The beginning of the book is dedicated to the practices the author of the PSAT, the ETS, uses to fool test takers. In this beginning section, there are sample questions, yet NO explanation as to how to arrive at the correct answer is supplied. It took two of my daughter's high school math teachers to crack one of the questions. The reason why our education system is failing (and this book promotes this) is that children and teens are not learning how to achieve a correct answer and offered explanations as to why they may have gotten an answer wrong. They are merely given questions and if they get it wrong, it ends there. If they learn the how's' and why's' we might actually educate them. There must be better preparatory test taking books out there; I have yet to find them.

The Princeton Review is great for learning the strategy behind test-taking. While not designed to teach all the math, reading, and writing skills tested (that's what high school is for; PR's books include excellent review guides for all subjects, however), this book DOES teach you how to avoid the "traps" and how to get inside the heads of the people writing the test. Invaluable for the college-bound high school student. I'd never have gotten my 1600 (old SAT) without it!