Test of Time: A Novel Approach to the SAT and ACT (Harvest Original) [Paperback]

Charles Harrington Elster (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest Original | Publication Date: May 17, 2004

Test of Time is a captivating time-travel adventure that incorporates vocabulary words from the SAT and ACT, boldfacing them throughout the novel and providing definitions in a handy back-of-the book glossary. The result is a fun and effective study method for the thousands of diligent students who take these tests each year.

For Orlando Garcia Ortiz and his friends at prestigious Hadleyburg University, it's finals week. That same week, but many, many years before, a famously eccentric writer in Hartford, Connecticut, is putting the finishing touches on a manuscript about a rebellious boy named Huck. Suddenly, a bizarre thing happens: The manuscript disappears and in its place appears a strange contraption-a college student's laptop that has traveled through time. It's a mysterious set of circumstances, but our intrepid heroes at Hadleyburg, joined by Mark Twain, endeavor to retrieve their valued possessions and return to their proper places in time.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up–Flashing back and forth between the present and late-19th-century Connecticut, Test of Time stars Mark Twain, whose Huckleberry Finn manuscript mysteriously vanishes into thin air from his desk, only to be replaced with the laptop computer belonging to modern-day university student Orlando Ortiz. Such an intriguing plot twist could potentially evolve into a quirky, suspenseful time-travel mystery in which Orlando and Twain devise a plan to retrieve their respective belongings. But the book also hopes to serve as a learning tool for the verbal portions of standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. Unfortunately, readers get bogged down not only by a flat narrative, but also by oddly placed, boldface vocabulary words embedded into the text. These test words, which repeatedly number well over a dozen per page, render the novel virtually unreadable and negate the attempt to promote vocabulary improvement through pleasure reading. Often three to five bold words are lumped into a single sentence, which could hamper readers' ability to deduce definitions from their context. And even though there is some interestingly believable teen speak scattered throughout, the book will still take almost as much work to get through as the usual SAT or ACT study manuals.–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
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Review

PRAISE FOR TOOTH AND NAIL
“A mystery story, at once whimsical and elucidating, filled with
hundreds of SAT examiner’s favorite test words.”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
“An SAT prep tool that practically spoon-feeds a plenitude of . . .
beneficial vocabulary to a plethora of adroit high school students.”
—HOUSTON CHRONICLE
“A superlative SAT strategy.A unique ... guide toward an SAT score of
which you can be proud.”—COLLEGE BOUND

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (May 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156011379
• ISBN-13: 978-0156011372
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #71 in Books > Education & Reference > Education > Test Guides - College & University > ACT (American College Tests)

More About the Author

Charles Harrington Elster is a writer, broadcaster, and logophile--a lover of words.

He is the author of the popular vocabulary-building program "Verbal Advantage." His other books include "Tooth and Nail" and "Test of Time," vocabulary-building novels for high school students preparing to take the college entrance exams; "There's a Word for It," a lighthearted look at unusual--and unusually useful--words; "What in the Word?" a salmagundi of word lore, wordplay, and advice on usage and pronunciation; and "The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations," now in its second edition, which the late William Safire of The New York Times hailed as "the best survey of the spoken field in years."

Charlie's latest book, "The Accidents of Style: Good Advice on How Not to Write Badly," was published in July 2010 by St. Martin's Griffin. He is currently writing a vocabulary-building companion to "Verbal Advantage" called "Word Workout."

Charlie was a consultant for "Garner's Modern American Usage." He is the pronunciation editor of "Black's Law Dictionary" and The Orthoepist (pronunciation expert) for Wordnik.com, an online dictionary project. He has been a guest contributor to the "On Language" column of The New York Times Magazine, and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and other publications.

Charlie has also been talking about language on the radio since 1985. He has been interviewed on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "Weekend Edition," and "All Things Considered" and been a guest on hundreds of radio shows around the country. For five and a half years he cohosted a weekly public radio talk show on language called "A Way with Words."

Charlie was born in New York City in 1957 and earned his B.A. cum laude from Yale in 1981. He lives in San Diego with his wife and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable but disappointing ending, November 2, 2006

By 

Paul Pscolka "IvyMasters" (South River, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Test of Time: A Novel Approach to the SAT and ACT (Harvest Original) (Paperback)

I am an SAT tutor and have found this book and others like it valuable to my students. Charles Harrington Elster is a master of his craft; unlike some other books of this type, his vocabulary and grammar are impeccable.* As a result, this book is very well written. What a great idea for a book-- Mark Twain in 21st century college America. Test of Time is informative and entertaining. Its ending is a bit sudden and far-fetched, though.
*Believe it or not, there are SAT vocab-building books that have poor definitions.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good resource for SAT/ACT prep, January 3, 2007

By 

C. Schmidt (Mid-America) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Test of Time: A Novel Approach to the SAT and ACT (Harvest Original) (Paperback)

My 12-year-old son read this book along with another vocabulary-building novel prior to taking the ACT for a regional talent search. He actually liked the story and was able to name and discuss new words from the text. I think this would be good for any test prep that requires vocabulary including the GRE. This is not a waste of money.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Book for Augmenting Your Vocabulary!!!!!, January 30, 2009

By 

Happy-go-lucky "Rita" (Ireland) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Test of Time: A Novel Approach to the SAT and ACT (Harvest Original) (Paperback)

Though a late learner in my forties, I bought this book a few years ago from this website.
I've loved this unputdownable book for the plot, humour, wit and much more. This book was so brillantly written that I bought other books by the same author, Charles Harrington Elster.
The beginning of this book was hillarious with character Mark Twain's antics - really funny! At first reading, I laughed much at the descriptions of Twain's comical dancing steps and language, all the anachronistic types that he had learned from the future - all those ilks that shell-shocked Twain's strait-laced contemporaries.