Customer Reviews

How to Prepare for the CBEST: California Basic Educational Skills Test (Barron's How to Prepare for the CBEST, California Basic Education Skills Test)

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I took the CBEST in June of 07 (and passed with lots of room to spare) and have several observations and suggestions which not only do I hope you'll find helpful but with any luck can save you some time and grief. I purchased four review books. The Princeton Review's Cracking the CBEST (2002)," Cliff's Testprep "CBEST, 6th Edition,(2000)" Learning Express' "The Complete Preparation Guide CBEST (2006)," and Barron's "How to Prepare for the CBEST (2001)." Additionally, I purchased one on-line guide and began receiving emails with "tips of the day" from another. Neither on-line guide was helpful in the least and I would caution you to stay away from them no matter how luring their websites are.

Now onto the test (and then I'll come back to the guidebooks). The test, as I'm sure you're aware is divided into three sections: Reading, math and a writing portion in which you're asked to write two essays.

Let's start with the math. If you go to the official CBEST website they will tell you specifically what you need to know in order to pass this part of the exam. There is no geometry (apparently there was a law suit several years ago and the math portion was made easier) and the algebra on the test is beginner stuff. About the most difficult algebra question went something like this: 10y - 36 + 4y - 6 + y = 3. What's the value of y? Most of the questions are basic math and if I can do them, so can you!

With the exception of The Princeton Review's "Cracking the CBEST," all the guidebooks, when it came to math, were significantly more difficult than you need to know. The biggest offender of this was Learning Express' "The Complete Preparation Guide CBEST" which included very high level math and was poorly written and filled with mistakes. The book also comes with a CD of practice tests but the tests on the CD are nothing more than the same questions from the text in a different order. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK -- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. In fact we should all stay away from Learning Express' books; after all, as consumers all we can do to send a message to those who try and rip us off is to boycott their products. Enough said...

Barron's "How to Prepare for the CBEST" math sections was also more difficult than it needed to be. Additionally they do something that never seems to appear on the actual test. Very often their "choice E" will be "none of the above." I still haven't run into none of the above on any actual CBEST test. I also had an older version of this text and when I compared the two I found almost no difference which I felt odd since between the two publications the test has changed.

Cliff's TestPrep's "CBEST (6th Edition) should be the best of the bunch based on the entire line of Cliff's books but while this one is pretty good it's not great. Again, they're not up to date on what's really necessary to learn with regard to the math section, also taking the reader deeper into math than the test taker will ever need to pass the CBEST. But as one of your guides, I do recommend this one but do your own editing with too complex math problems.

The best of the bunch (for math) was The Princeton Review's "Cracking the CBEST." In fact on page 7 the authors explain how the CBEST has changed recently. For math, this book is excellent. Enough said.

A suggestion to make this experience a bit easier is first go to the CBEST site, read about the specifications but DON'T TAKE THE PRACTICE TEST YET. Use this guide (Princeton's) first and take their practice tests. When you feel you're ready take the official CBEST Practice Test (which you'll find is very close to the actual test), see how you do and what you still need to review. Sadly, CBEST only offers one practice test.

READING: First of all, the CBEST passages are reading comprehension and they're short. Think about it, you only have four hours to answer 50 math questions, 50 reading questions and write two essays. There's simply not enough time for long reading passages. The CBEST Reading practice test is a realistic example of the length of the passages.

Barron's "How to Prepare for the CBEST" was pretty good (not great) with their reading section prep. Cliff's TestPrep was also good and I thought some of their suggestions and study strategies were very good. Princeton Review's "Cracking the CBEST" reading section was very good and they have a section called "How to Crack It" which was very helpful in their breaking down of the different types of reading questions.

Learning Express' "The Complete Preparation Guide CBEST" was sloppy. One of the questions asked about something that wasn't mentioned and there were several mistakes.

For the Writing portion I recommend both Cliff's TestPrep and The Princeton Review's "Cracking the CBEST." They both give some good tips and sample essays. Princeton has a template you can follow for your essay which was helpful. The one frustrating aspect of their writing section was they only had the opening paragraph of their sample essay when it would have been helpful to have the entire sample essay to review.

One suggestion is to practice writing essays in short periods of time. By the way most of the sample questions I've run into in these guides are pretty close to what's actually asked on the exam. Yesterday's questions were something like, "if you could change one thing about schools what would it be?" and people can find happiness in the little things -- do you agree (something like that).

I guess this has been a long winded way of saying there are two guidebooks that are worth buying: The Princeton Review's "Cracking the CBEST," and CliffsTestPrep (although it's out of date for math.)

Good Luck.

This book is a waste of time. I studied off and on for a couple of weeks, only to find that the actual exam was a lot easier than i expected. You are better off studying the sample questions that is included in the CBEST registration bulletin. The sample tests in the Barron's guide were needlessly difficult and somewhat stressful. Don't bother with this book at all!

Save your money do not buy this book. The questions in the book do not reflect what is on the test. If you can balance your checkbook, figure the price on a percentage off sale, double, triple or halve a recipe and total your sales with the double coupons you can pass the math section. For the reading read Time, Newsweek. If you can understand the articles and graphs that go with the article you will pass the reading portion.
The book does a diservice to people. I can see where a lot of people might just give up and not take the test, especially if they have been out of school for awhile. The math explanations to the questions are horrible even I couldn't understand them and my bachelor degree is in math.
Shame on Barron's for not actually working on a book for the CBEST but for taking portions of their other test books and throwing them all together and calling it a CBEST prep book.

Do not buy this book. You are better off simply working through the practice problems in the CBEST instructional booklet. I bought this book because I needed to review basic math before taking the test. The book gave such complex descriptions that I was incredibly intimidated. This book recommends that you memorize all kinds of formulae, even the quadratic equasion(!), whereas the test will give you complicated formulae--your task is to perform operations. A look at the English grammar section was equally, if not more, intimidating to me, and I am a grammarian! I also found more than a few typos in the math section--one wonders how many more there are throughout. The CBEST tests basic proficiency, not expertise. If you need to review some basic concepts, look online, or get a different prep book, just not this one. I wasted a lot of time because of this book.

After buying this book, I nearly didn't take the CBEST! The book goes into way too much depth, which really isn't necessary for the actual test, and the explanations were more confusing than enlightening! In the end I discarded the book, sat the test in any case and passed! Good luck for the test, just make sure you DON'T BUY *THIS* BOOK!!!

I hate tests. I heard from a lot of people that the CBEST was easy, but I have been out of school for a long time and didn't want to take a chance. This book was easy to follow. Yes, there was a lot of information in it, but it was worthwhile. The test wasn't that hard, but I was very confident thanks to the Barron's CBEST book.

This book helped me a great deal. I had been out of school for almost ten years. The reading and writing portions helped me regain my confidence. The math helped me remember what I had almost forgotten.

I recieved the book I purchased right away. My book came in excellent condidtion, just as they said. I am very impressed with the speedy delivery!

This book came in real handy when I decided to get drunk the night before the CBEST test which I then used as an excuse to skip it in the morning. I never went through with my plans on becoming an elementary school teacher.

True story.

I bought the book and studied the material and did the practice tests. If anything the book overprepares you for the CBEST which is not necessarily a bad thing. Passed the test on my first try thanks to this great refresher book.