53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a ticket for your dreams to come true., January 8, 2006
This review is from: Math Workbook for the New SAT (Barron's Math Workbook for the Sat I)3rd Edition (Paperback)
I've taken my SATs May of 2003, and October 2003. I scored 740 for May SAT and achieved 780 for October SAT. This book is one of the best books for mathematics. It depends on how well you use this book. Anyways, I'll tell how i used this book.
First week: I bought the book, went over the concepts, structures, tricks, strategies, one of 10 REAL SATs practice exam to know what score i would rank, read through beginning stuff.
Second week: Starting this week, I work on chapter 3, which deals with arithmetic skills and concepts. There are 8 lessons in chapter 3. I did 2 lessons a day starting Monday, and then Friday, I relax and review the lessons I've practiced. When you study, you must MASTER the concepts. Knowing the concept does not help.
Third week: There are 7 lessons in Chapter 4 which deals with Algebra. I do two lessons a day, for 4th day, when I only do 1 lesson, I work on my weaknesses in Chapter 4. Then 5th day, I review and study. When review, review lessons from previous chapters so that you won't forget.
Fourth week: There are 5 lessons in Chapter 5. I work 2 lessons a day, and then I review and study as usual.
Fifth week: Chapter 6 deals with Geometry, which was one of my weaknesses. So I decided to learn 1 lesson a day since there are 8 lessons and SAT strongly emphasizes a lot on geometry. So fifth week, I've done 4 lessons, one lesson each day. 5th day, I reviewed.
Sixth week: I've continued and finish last 4 lessons and reviewed as well
Seventh week: I went back to my routine plan and studied two lessons a day, and then reviewed.
Eighth week: I worked on Chapter 8, last chapter before practice exams. 5 lessons, study.
9th week: Then after I've studied these chapters, I go over and review all the problems, questions, concepts from previous chapters. I review chapters 3-5.
10th week: Same as 9th week but I reviewed chapters 6-8.
11th and 12th week. I took practice exams to familiar myself with the exams. After you see the score you've got, go to problems and check to see if you made a mistake because you weren't careful enough. Then assume that it's correct and check your score again. For instance, You got 630 on practice exam but if you didn't make stupid mistakes, what could you have gotten?, 650? 700?
From this point, you're pretty much set for SAT Math. Note that I'm one of the biggest slacker with horrible English skills who's from Korea and still get high score. I am NOT a genius or some nerd. I received grades of Bs and Cs in mathematic courses in past and if I can pull this off, you can. This is a 3 month plan I've made beginning of junior year.
My parents told me that cramming does not work and that I should space out studying to learn more effectively. I am a fan of Bruce Lee and he has stated long time ago that "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." This means that you shouldn't assume you know the concept just because you've solved few easy problems. You should apply the concept as many times as you can and do them properly.
People say "practice makes perfect". It does not. PERFECT practice ALMOST makes perfect. You'll never get your goals to be perfect if you don't practice it properly and people make mistakes once in a while, so nobody is perfect.
In Psychology, It shows that spaced practice and overlearning helps for studies because overlearning and spaced practice puts your learning to long-term memory where it wont' decay for a long time.
When I say review and stdy everytime, it means, know the concept really well and master them by applying them as much as possible to every problems. When i say two lessons, it means, solve every problems in those lessons. I've also used Kaplan Math Workbook for practice problems to strengthen my concepts. I've studied previous chapters When I was studying chapters 4/5/6/7/8 to prevent my brain from forgetting.
I used this method to tutor students also as well. It worked for my studnets. I've raised most students' scores. My best student raised his score from 580 to 720, then he quit learning from me after 3 months, learned on his own from knowing this method for 2 months, and achieved 800. Student getting higher than a teacher? If I can do this, anyone can.
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