Customer Reviews

How to Prepare for the SAT II Writing (Barron's How to Prepare for the SAT II: Writing)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Barron's SAT II Writing covers the basic topics on the SAT II. Its essay writing sugesstions are beneficial and useful; however, the five practice tests in the back of the book are flawed. The practice tests contain typos that greatly confuse the reader. In a few cases the book stated the answer as one thing and then had a different answer for the same question in anonther location. After taking the writing test four times (twice on the PSAT and twice on the real SAT II), I feel that many of the practice questions that Barron's offers are not similar to ones found on the test. However, if one really needs help with the SAT II Writing then Barron's will provide limited help; just don't always believe the book is correct. Personally, I prefered Kaplan's guide to the SAT II Writing.

I excel in writing and thus was eager to sit for the SAT II subject in writing. I had no preperation and scored a 790. I wanted that 800, so I bought this book. I took the tests in it and found the questions ambiguous and just dumb. My grade fluctuated wildly. This book, as some of my fellow reviewers have said, has bad examples of those problems that appear on the SAT II test.

I SUGGEST THAT YOU NOT BUY THIS BOOK.

An excellent book is the Princeton Review book, "Cracking the SAT II: Writing" also available on Amazon.com

In preparation for all the tests administered by the College Board I'm taking, this book by far has been the most helpful in its category, if not in general. The explanations are very thorough, there are practice and review exercises at the end of every section, and other writing preps written by Peterson, Kaplan, etc. did not even come close to what this book did for me. It gave me a thorough grasp of the grammar and usage concepts tested on the SATII, and helped me write better essays by containing many practice tests with prompts very similar to the one I encountered on the real test. I truly believe this book was a significant factor in me getting an 800 on the SATII. If you only buy one review book, by all means, make this one it.

I went with another guide before test day and was severely disappointed by the generality of the advice given. It turns out that I didn't need the preparation, as I managed to score an 800, but it certainly wasn't due to the guide I purchased.

On the other hand, I was able to check out the Barron's version later on and I came away impressed by the thorough coverage of relevant concepts. This guide covers the specific quirks of the English language that you'll find on the SAT II Writing Test, specifics offered by neither Kaplan nor Princeton Review.

As some of the lukewarm reviews indicate, this guide does not offer a covenient distillation of English grammar into a few pages. For those comitted to careful and effective study of the relevant grammar, however, this is the ONLY choice.

I used this book in preparation for the PSAT and the new SAT. I haven't received my SAT score yet, but I received an 80 on the writing section of the PSAT. Honestly, I think this is an excellent study guide! Even if you're good at English, this in-depth book shows you what to look for when answering questions. I HIGHLY recommend it.

This Barron's book helped me a great deal to prepare for the SATII in Writing. The book give good instructions in essay writing and has many good examples of essays to study. The author's style is easy to follow and enjoyable to read, since it is both informational and humorous.

I got this book for my high school teenager as a supplement to the Kaplan Guide in order to provide more practice tests. But this Barron's book included a bonus.

It provides a scale for the number of correct answers needed in the multiple choice section for different levels of achievement, e.g. excellent, better, good etc. This was missing from the Kaplan book. Although it does not provide a translation to the scaled scores, it is still a helpful tool to know what specific number of right answers a test taker needs to meet their goal.

For example, the book says that an excellent score is no more than 5 missed answers on the multiple choice section (with a detailed breakdown in each of the 3 subsections). That's what we focused on: correcting common errors to get the score within that range.

The official score report we received showed only 5 missed answers and translated that to a score of 79 out of 80 on that part of the exam. In my mind, that validates the book's scale.

The review material in both the Kaplan guide and this Barron's guide are excellent and equivalent. I am glad my "scholar" used both books. But if I had to recommend only one, I would recommend the Barron's.

I have taken the SAT2 Writing tests for twice. The first time I
did not even prepare for it and thus I got a score that really
disappointed me. This time I took it in the Nov 02 test and I use
this Barron's Writing book. I think it is truly helpful. It
contains every detail in grammar, such as verb tenses, redundancy
and wordiness and some others, which, are really helpful in the
real tests. At the end if this book, there are 5 practice tests!
This is esp the strngth of this book, since there are rarely
writing SAT ref books providing so many practices. I have done
all the practice and got very familiarized with the pattern of
wriring test. If you are not good at grammar or the form of this
test, I recommend you thoroughly read this book and take the
practice tests!! By the way, the essay part is also wonderful!
In this part, I have learned a lot of skills needed in composing
an essay in only 20 mins. It's a great book, hence I rate it
a 5 star!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a good score on the SAT II: Writing. Not having a natural flare for writing (especially not in so short a time frame), I rather reluctantly registered to take this test, for I thought it would be necessary for me to display some writing ability to employers, universities, and the like. I managed to gain a score of 760 in this test, which greatly exceeded my expectations. Such a score would not have been possible were it not for the practice which this book gave me, most especially in the essay section. It didn't teach me how to write, but it taught me to use my limited writing skills to gain a great score in this writing test.

I'm a private SAT tutor(have been for 6+ yrs) and have gone through almost every brand of SAT prep book on the shelf. When it comes to writing, Barron's is hands down the most comprehensive. Maybe it's not as "fun" but it's well organized and separates the rules out, and doesn't skim through everything as the Kaplan / Princeton books do (which are spotty-- some of their sections are good, others not so much). In terms of covering participles and comparisons-- this is definitely my favorite.

When the prep companies adapted to the new SAT I, many of them took the prep from the SAT II Writing, pared it down significantly, and lumped it with math and reading comp in a big book of all the sections-- but this pared down version (particularly Kaplan's eesh) is not comprehensive enough. Thus I still pull out the SAT II Writing book-- I think a few of the companies finally have put longer SAT I Writing books on the shelf, but even with its age, this one's still relevant. And my students can get it used for under $5!