Customer Reviews

How to Prepare for the SAT II (Barron's How to Prepare for the Sat II United States History)

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

 

 

This book covers everything you need or want to know about American History. I didn't even manage to get through the book entirely and still managed to pick up a 750 on the SAT II thanks to this book. I constantly refer to it whenever I have any questions about American History, and it really has helped expand my knowledge.

I took the AP US history exam last year and received 5. Now for the fall I plan on taking the SAT II, so I bought the book and took the diagnostic test and got more than half wrong, the questions seemed impertinent to american history and ambiguous. But the book does cover the topic in depth and the summary is helpful. Don't feel dejected when doing poorly on the tests.

Surprisingly, this book was of tremendous help to me when I was studying for the AP US History exam last year (I received a 4). It wasn't particuarly useful for the SAT II, but I highly recommend it for AP review. The layout of the book begins with pre-colonial basics, "The Age of Exploration," the colonies, and then launches into the American Revolution. After explaining [in detail] the Constitution, the book is organized by presidency. These "chapters" are fairly concise and well organized. Don't bother hiliting: everything is important.

I found this book to be more detailed and helpful than Princeton's guide for AP US History and I used this to review for my AP exam. All the information is organized very well. Every president has their own chapter where you'll find everything important about them (what they did, their policies, etc...). There's also lots of other info that you need to know. Great book!

This book contained a satisfactory review of American History and multiple practice tests. However, the questions on the practice tests were WAY out of line compared to the actual questions on the test. I took one practice tests that had about 1/4 of the questions on farm and labor history, while there were only about 2 questions about farm and labor history on the actual test. I consistently got about half of the questions right on the practice tests, yet I got a 770 on the actual SAT II. This book needlessly panicked me and there must be a better choice.

The history review section is very well organized, in presidential order, and is comprehensive: I used this book to study without taking a single course in US government and history and still got a score in the mid 700s.
However, as the book goes into the 20th century it gives a colored view of history. The Princeton Review represents both liberal and conservative view points such as on where the New Deal succeeded and failed, while Barons plunges on with no such commentary. While it was irrelevant(only a handful of questions come from the second half of the 20th century) I was really irritated time to time after 1960. Also, one of the ruling themes of the 90's-Clinton's scandals and corruption-was down played in a few short paragraphs.
And it goes without saying that Barons constantly strives and acheives, in all subjects, the status of 'Most Difficult SAT2 Test Maker'.(-not a good thing)
Study this book up to WW1 and go over another publisher's prep book.

This is also a commentary on the inclusion of Social Studies with American History. The questions given as examples, perhaps representative, force the taker of the test to submit to political correctness: e.g., what is the biggest obstacle to women's rights? By the way, only the most insulting answers need be swallowed (i.e. chosen) and I am by the way, a woman. This test is a not so subtle effort to : 1) reward the student of social engineering; 2) obscure the achievements of the American History scholar with the brainwashed PC product (student) who has memorized and happily accedes to the social engineering questions. American History scholars, take Math II C instead.