18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book came out before the New SAT but it's great!, May 25, 2006
This review is from: Kaplan New SAT Writing Workbook (Paperback)
As we all know, the new SAT writing section is exactly the same length as the old SAT II Writing. It is also the easiest section on the new SAT.
I thought I wouldn't need to buy a book on this section because I always got a decent score on every practice test I took. I was WRONG!
This book helped me tremendously. In fact, the book shows you [ALL] the errors that the SAT will test you on. After completely reading the book and doing all the exercises -- I came to a conclusion -- I have cracked the Writing section.
If we exclude the essay from the Writing section -- we are left with 3 things.
1. Identifying Sentence Errors
There are ONLY 16 common mistakes the SAT tests you on in this part -- they are:
Subject-Verb Agreement When Subject Follows Verb
Subject-Verb Agreement When Subject and Verb Are Separated
Subject-Verb Agreement When the Subject Seems Plural
Confusion of Simple Past and Past Participle
Confusion of Infinitive and Gerund
Non-Idiomatic Preposition After Verb
Wrong Word (tricky but easy)
Wrong Tense
Number Agreement Problems
Pronoun in the Wrong Number
Pronoun in the Wrong Case in Compound Noun Phrases
Pronoun Shift (can't miss those)
Pronoun with Ambiguous Reference
Faulty Comparison (tend to be hard)
Misuse of Adjective or Adverb
Double Negative (incredibly easy if you don't overlook them)
2. Improving Sentences (easiest of the three)
The SAT test ONLY 5 common mistakes in this part -- they are:
Run-on Sentences
Sentence Fragments
Misplaced Modifiers (can be confusing to solve at times)
Faulty Parallelism
Faulty Coordination / Subordination
3. Improving Paragraphs (hardest of the three)
There are ONLY 3 basic types of improving Paragraph questions the SAT tests you on -- they are:
General organization sentences
Revising Senteces questions
Combining Sentences Questions.
When I took the New SAT test on January 28th, I managed to ace the Writing section. This is because the errors tested were exactly the same errors found in the book -- so seeing the exact errors but in different sentences was second nature to me. I also managed to finish Section 10 which has 14 Improving sentece questions so quickly that I was giving out the answers to my friend sitting next to me (don't try this).
Now get this book and ACE the Writing section.
Shall I say more?
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book to cure writing fears, November 13, 2005
This review is from: Kaplan New SAT Writing Workbook (Paperback)
This book is very good because it goes over each of the writing parts, one section at a time. Within the sections, they give you the specific errors and rules for grammar. The questions that appear at the end of each section and subsection (after each grammar rule) gives extra needed practice.
Reading this book, I finally got an idea of the basic writing grammar skills, and went from answering 7/14 right (in one writing section) in 25 minutes, and working with someone else, to 10/14 in 9 minutes by myself (in the same section, different questions). That's pretty good considering reading this book in less than a week.
It could have a few more problem sets like the critical reading book, and there are noticible mistakes in writing in the book. For a book that is intended to teach grammar, that's a little dangerous.
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17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Minor Errors..but still very good., August 3, 2005
This review is from: Kaplan New SAT Writing Workbook (Paperback)
I bought all the Kaplan workbooks after I got back my March SAT scores and realized that I really needed desperate help. The Kaplan Writing Workbook 2005 was their first introduction of this series and overall it has apt-content for questions however their content review is pretty horrid.
If you really want a good overview go purchase or checkout Barron's SAT II Writing since that book is simply the best review for grammer exercises. My score went up from a 520 to a 590-710 on collegeboard exams and the Kaplan review test A placed me at a 670 so I'd tread with caution on the projected scores.
Parts of the book seem very amaeuteristic and content that an editor should have caught but nonetheless I'd say it's required for some scoring in the 500's and hoping to raise themselves to a 650+ range.
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