Customer Reviews

McGraw-Hill's SAT I with CD-Rom, Second edition (McGraw Hill's College Review Books)

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

 

 

The folks at McGraw-Hill finally got it right!!!! After using the Princeton Review book before my PSAT, and then the Rocket Review and Up Your Score, I felt like I was being duped. I wanted to really learn how to improve my SAT scores, and I was willing to put some work into it. I thought a test-prep book would have lots of practice and detailed answers to explain your mistakes to help you improve. But these books kept insulting the ETS gratuitously, and tooting their own "secret methods" that I started to suspect that the emperor had no clothes. They would explain a trick, and give an example, but then there was almost no practice, and their "tricks" hardly worked at all on the real SAT. "Joe Bloggs" is truly a joke that helps perhaps only the most naive student in the world. Reading these books, I felt like I was being patronized by a bunch of smart alecs. The SAT isn't a joke, folks: I'm serious about learning and doing well on the SAT.

Then I found this book, and I discovered that someone really got it. The way to prep for the SAT is to take a realistic practice SAT, then get good feedback about your mistakes that shows you what you need to practice in order to improve your score. This book is BRILLIANTLY organized. It's huge, but you will probably end up using only a part of it. The vocabulary units are great and very effective, and the lessons are so systematic that you can't help but learn. Whe I did the lessons, I finally understood so much that I learned in math years ago and never really had understood. I can't tall you how good that feels, not to mention improving my SAT scores by 260 points!