Customer Reviews

Math Study Guide for the SAT®, ACT®, and SAT® Subject Tests - 2010 Edition (Math Study Guide for the SAT, ACT, & SAT Subject Tests)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before reading this book, I was lost on the ACT/SAT. The types of questions, especially on the math portion, always confused me. I bought book after book, but most them helped very little. I tried Kaplan's programs, however they often simply frustrated me more with little change in my scores. Finally, I found The Math Study Guide and it blew me away. The way things are explained in this book make the ACT/SAT much less scary. Each test (ACT, SAT, and SAT Subject Tests) has its own section with hints, tips and examples for which ever test you're studying for. These come in really handy when taking the test, and they definitely boosted my score. I believe that it is because of this book that I did so well on the ACT and am going to college.

In short, Mr. Corn did a fantastic job at making an ACT/SAT study book which is approachable, friendly and is packed full of information which will help anyone struggling with math on the ACT/SAT raise their score. I cannot recommend this product enough! A++

"Believe it or Not," this book has only 157 pages, but I must agree with the two previous reviewers: it is excellent, and I will be recommending it to all my students. The book offers the math basics required for the tests in the best and most user-friendly form I have encountered in many years helping students with these exams.

The pages do not contain lots of dense text, and the illustrations and key facts are presented more clearly than any of the other books I have used. Each of the seven chapters contains several pages of explanation, a page or so of problems, and solutions to the problems immediately following the problems, so one does not have to jump back and forth from problems to answers and explanations.

The author wisely takes the reader / student back to middle school math for a quick review of basic concepts. He also offers very clear instructions on how to plug problems into the scientific calculator (it looks like the TI-83 or 83+ to me).

Two final very positive features are the list of websites for more information and practice tests and the websites to report errors in the book and see the errata posted. This last feature is a wonderful advance from the early Kaplan 2400 (with many misprints) and The Official SAT of 2009 that included a printed insert of errata.

If one needs more practice, one can always buy a book of practice tests and preparation material, and lug around almost 1000 pages.

As an experienced test preparation coach, I know first-hand how hard it is to find accurate and thorough material for students to use. Richard Corn's book streamlines math preparation by putting all the information in a single book, rather than tackling each test (SAT, ACT, SAT Math Subject tests) separately. As an experienced tutor himself, Corn is meticulous about updating his book regularly to accurately reflect the content and difficulty of the math problems tested. Each subject is reviewed in roughly two pages, followed by practice problems and explanations. It is efficient and effective. Besides the 'real' test books (The Official SAT Study Guide and The Real ACT Test Prep Guide), this is the only book I recommend to students who need a solid math overview.

So I've been reading the 5 start reviews, and then the few that say the reviews were made up, or whatever. I decided, to test this out myself, and mind you, I am an independent consumer, as a teenager, and the SAT Subject Tests are this Saturday, 5/1/10, f.y.i.. This book was about.. ~15.00 including tax, so I was hoping for it to be more effective than the Math portion on the large 1000-page SAT books by Princeton, Gruber's, etc.. I'm about half way done reading/studying this book, which is ~157 pages. It has many sections, and has a 1 page introduction, 1 page 8-10 multiple choice question, and another with solutions to that, with some explanation. So, about 3 pages per topic. It's a very brief outline, and tells you which formulas, etc.. to use. It also includes a few operations you can do on your graphing calculator (I have a TI-84 SE, which matches). I have to say that this author tries to get to the main points of the section, and does a good job, to be honest. The practice problems, aren't very challenging. They touch upon that part of the subject, and that's about it. Maybe 3-4 are tricky. Overall, I'm a bit ... meh about this book. There needs to be a bit more than 10 practice problems per section, since I've proven to myself, that many difficult problems with concise and elaborate solutions tend to bolster one's knowledge by a long shot. I just don't believe that a book with one part of the SAT and ACT, should cost as much as any other SAT book on Amazon that cost just about the same price...

Final judgment: NOPE, a bit disappointed.. no 5-stars. I am pretty reasonable, but the price of this book isn't. ;|

You're going to have to know the material before you buy this book. This book doesn't necessarily teach, it skims. I don't believe it's worth the price-tag. I've learned/been helped more by going to my local library to borrow separate books on Geometry/Algebra/Trig/Pre-Calc. To be ready for such a test in a short time, they have smaller versions of their books(cram sessions), but if you really wanna do well on tests such as this, longer and more detailed books are going to help a bit more, since studying for more than just a week before the test isn't really smart at all.

Purchased this book, as well as some other books for SAT Math prep. Ended up only using this book because it was the simplest and most logical to use, starting with a review of topics tested on the SAT. Once you have worked through the review material, best thing to do is to keep doing practice SAT's (buy the official SAT book for practice tests), mark them and review areas missed with the help of this book. Once you are familiar with doing practice SATs, work on test strategies that are explained in the same author's other book. Good luck

Superb study manual. Tons of practice questions and examples with explanations. An absolute must have as part of preparations for the actual exam. Highly recommended.

I actually really love this little book. It's mostly review and preparation for class exams or the SATs. It's quite useful with the little lesson, several multiple choice questions, and explanations afterward. I highly recommend it!