Customer Reviews

SAT Vocabulary Express: Word Puzzles Designed to Decode the New SAT

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

 

 

What a great way for students to prepare for the SAT! Being a high school senior, I had no intentions on studying the dictionary to prepare for the SAT, and when I found this book I was relieved to know there was a fun way to study vocab. The authors of this book did a great job of providing a new, exciting way to prepare for the College Board exams. The puzzles and acrostics helped break down the words and figure out the meanings. I always feared the vocabulary on the SAT's but after reading this book (learning new words on top of learning great new methods) I have a new confidence for taking the SAT. I recommend "SAT Vocabulary Express" to anyone who plans on taking these tests in the future!

I am about to retake the SAT 12 years after high school, so that I can teach for Kaplan. I bought this book to help me study, after realizing that the vocabulary may be tougher than I imagined. Vocabulary Express is a great book (so far), and it makes an otherwise dry task much more interesting. I definitely recommend the book; I refrain from giving it 5 stars, however, due to a couple of faults:

1) There are some typos in the Anagram puzzles that necessitate looking up the answer in the back of the book. (Example: The word RUMBA is to be unscrambled in one puzzle, and the correct answer is URBAN. Thus, the 'M' should be an 'N'.

2) The instructions to the Word Within Word puzzles state that "each word must be at least four letters long". However, the book counted three letter words as correct and did not list (whether intentionally or unintentionally) all of the possible answers.

Despite the editing errors, I would still highly recommend this book as a great alternative to memorizing lists of vocabulary words.

I bought this book for my two teenagers and was totally impressed by the clever techniques and the positive attitude. It feels as though you have a friendly coach at your side encouraging your every move. You're not going it alone. Thanks for the guidance and support.

I purchased this book last summer with the intention of using it in an SAT PREP quarter course I am now teaching. I really didn't get into using it though until this last quarter and my students begged for the puzzles! We had to take a lot of practice SAT tests as part of our curriculum and I set Fridays as "Puzzle Day". I had juniors who wanted to make sure they were never absent on Fridays!
I do think it would be difficult to take this book "all at once". If I were doing it on my own I would work on maybe a chapter a week.
Unfortunately, there were a few pop culture references in the clues that were from before their time. But not that bad at all. It's a great way to get students to think outside the box.
I will use this again this year.

Both my teenagers found this book fun and helpful. The were addicted to the puzzles. They did the puzzles while eating their breakfast cereal!Memorizing lists of vocabulary seemed like drudgery compared to using SAT Vocabulary Express.

my son simply did not have the time to attempt this book, too complicated to review vocab!