Customer Reviews

Kaplan SAT II: Chemistry, Fourth Edition: Higher Score Guaranteed (Kaplan SAT Subject Tests: Chemistry)

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

 

 

This book does prepare your for the SAT, but I still wouldn't recommend it. I am normally a very good science and math student, but I found a number of things in the book very hard to follow. Even right after reading a chapter, the sections quizzes were extremely difficult and often the only way to figure out the answer would be to look at the explaination after the quiz. Also, the book is filled with problems that require a calculator even though you aren't allowed to use a calculator on the real test and thus would never face such quesitons. There are lots of questions/topics covered that just aren't on the test.

The bottom line is that this book is much harder than it needs to be. It will prepare you for the test, but I don't think it is worth the extra confusion and frustration of extra and overly complicated topics.

I used this book in conjunction w/ Barron's and Princeton Review and I got an 800, mostly thanx to this book. Barron's was too detailed, but good for reference and practice tests. Princeton review was 2 broad.

The best way to prepare yourself for the chemistry SAT II is to take practice tests and review the material. This book has the best information to help you do that. The only downside to this book is that it goes over many things that will not be on the actual test. I just got my results back and I got a 700+, which I'm happy with. Out of all the test prep books availible, I'd recomeend this one.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning to take the SAT IIs in Chemistry. This book was my only study guide for a month and I got a 790. It is well organized and thoroughly covers many aspects of the test. Yes, the book itself is difficult to get through, but if you stick to it, the rewards are worth your while. I particularly appreciated the practice tests that they had at the end, which were a little harder than the actual test itself, but I consider that a benefit for preparation, as well as the chapter they had on stress management and relaxation. This book is another strong success for Kaplan.

This book covers basicly everything that will appear on SAT II chem. I think the most useful feature of the book is the tables. Everything is so organized that you are not going to mess up basic concepts. I got a 670 even though I didn't finish the book. You can get a 750+ if you go over everything in the book. Plus, it's very helpful if you are taking chem 2 AP.

This book was a lifesaver to me in preparing for the SAT II Chemistry test. The book is straightforward and well-organized and focuses only on the material essential to good performance on the test.
I found that the questions on the practice test actually matched those found on the SAT very well, and the result of my last practice test (taken the day before the real one) was exactly the same as my score on the official test.
In addition to good practice for the SAT II, the book actually EXPLAINS the concepts clearly and efficiently in each chapter. I would highly reccomend this to anyone planning to take the test.

While this book provides a good overall synopsis of the SAT II it is missing a crucial component- an overview of Descriptive chemistry- this makes up about 30% of teh actual test. some questions in this book are too simple, the questions on the real test are somewhat harder than this but much simpler than those practice questions provided in Barrons' review book.

This book covers just about all the major topics on the test, but I found that even after going through all the chapters and doing all the quizzes and practice tests, the book did not include some key terms in chemistry. There were also a lot of questions on the test that were not in this book. So use this book for reviewing for the chemistry test, but do not totally depend on it.