Gruber's Complete Sat Guide 2011, 14e [Paperback]

I work for a tutoring company. With my employer's permission, I use this book after my students have exhausted all of my company's prep materials.

This is an excellent book for SAT tutors; a average-to-good book for students using this book as their sole source of preparation; an excellent book when used in conjunction with the SAT exams published by the College Board.

This book teaches critical thinking strategies which are essential for not only the SAT, but other examinations you will take in high school and college. I cannot recommend the strategies highly enough. Other SAT test prep books teach you tricks. The Gruber book teaches you thinking strategies which will serve you for years to come.

I will focus especially on the math content, as that is what I usually use this book for.

-Critical Reading Section-

The questions in the review tests are a little harder than the actual SAT. The critical thinking strategies are useful.
The vocab list is extensive, and perhaps a touch overly difficult, but it would be a good list for a student to work with if they want to do very long term preparation (12+ months plus) for this test.

-Writing Section-

The writing section is an afterthought, in terms of content review other than the practice tests. The section on writing a good essay is helpful (see below), but the guide lacks numerous practice questions for the multiple choice writing questions. The practice test questions are a touch harder than the actual SAT questions.

However, this book has a section on writing the essay which would be helpful for many students. It also has a section on grammar that should be required reading for every high school student in this country. Grammar is not taught extensively in schools anymore, and this book gives you a back to basics course in the subject.

-Math Section-

Math Practice Test Questions- Unlike the SAT, the questions sometimes seem to be randomly placed within the section. An entire section can be very easy, and the next section can be brutally tough. The questions are tougher-to-much-tougher than the actual SAT. (Students using this book on their own should be made aware of that.)

Questions on the practice test are linked by a numerical code to the content review (covered below) as well as the general math strategies (covered at the start of this review). As such, they can serve as a reminder of the general math principles that the were just part of a specific test question. It's helpful if you get the question wrong, or omitted, and can even be helpful if you get the question correct.

Math Content Review- Excellent. If anything, it overprepares you for the test. It covers some areas (such as set theory, and certain geometric formulas) that are not covered on this test. This section can be a godsend if you are weak in this subject.

After each content review section, there are 50 practice questions which cover what you reviewed. These questions are much harder than what's on the test.

-Summary-

This book prepares you for a test that is more difficult than the actual SAT. But the strategies it teaches, as well as the essay review and grammar review sections mentioned in this book, are worth their weight in gold.

This book should be used in conjunction with the book of SAT exams published by the College Board. (The Official SAT Study Guide) You will likely score higher on those more realistic practice tests than the harder Gruber practice tests.

-Addendums-
The 10th, 11th, and 12th editions of this book are 99.95% the same as the book under review. If you can buy a copy of those books (at what I assume would be a very inexpensive price), you are getting this book.

Another, less effusive way of saying the same thing: This book hasn't been really updated in at least 5 years.

But that's a personal quibble of mine. You should buy this book.

First off, I want you to understand that I took the original SAT in 2001 and made a 1100 without any preparation. I graduated HS with honors. I had to re-take the SAT to be able to apply to a school for the Army. Anyway, I had to refresh myself on ALL highschool math. I also needed information on how the new test was structured and basic "test strategy". Granted, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Biology/Chem minor and took Calculus (about a year ago) and I managed to score well on all of those exams. I still needed a COMPLETE refresher. When I started this book, I was having some difficulty remembering all of the "tricks", so I referred to this website: [...] and reviewed all the old stuff in about a day. THEN, I attacked this book.

This book has study timelines for those who only have 4hours to review or months to review. They explain what to do first to make sure you are as prepared as the time you have allows. That I thought, was GREAT, because I was sort of in the middle.

I just took the SAT a few days ago and I would say that I felt WELL prepared on the Math section. I wish my "experimental" section was math because I was cruising! The strategies were VERY helpful and I managed to answer all the questions on every section except one (the first one, I wasn't in sync with the time). So, I would say that math section and strategies were VERY helpful for me. The questions in the book were actually HARDER, than on the real exam so I felt very confident answering the questions and dodging the "obvious error" choices. I didn't use any other review, except Gruber's 2400, so I can't compare to Barron's or Princeton.

There is a section "A List of SAT Words Appearing More than Once on actual SAT Exams" I memorized about all of these words and didn't see even one on the exam that was relevant to the question. The other vocab lists with root/prefix and the Vocab tests are GREAT if you have the time for memorizing 3,400 vocab words. Another site: [...], etc already made that you can download to your iPod/iPhone via a 99cent app. to review on the go. This was my preferred method.

I took my grammar skills for granted and just reviewed briefly the night prior, and I wish I would have reviewed more. The book goes over basic definitions of all sentence components: noun/pronouns to mood and voice to connectives to tense, etc, but I don't think there is enough practice in this section.

The writing section was adequate for what you need for that part of the exam.

There are also 5 practice exams. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.

Also, since I knew I wasn't going to take the exam more than once, I checked the books out at my local library so I saved some cash.

I own both, The Official SAT Study Guide and Gruber's Complete SAT Guide (2011), and if you are debating on which of the two to pick, I recommend Gruber's Complete SAT Guide. While The Official SAT Study Guide was O.K, Gruber's Study Guide was challenging in every aspect. It includes tons of practice SAT questions, EACH question explain in detail,and have 5 full- length SAT practice test along with proven strategies for solving problems quickly. PLUS the questions are more challenging than those form The Official SAT Study Guide. Last but not least, do you really think that The Official SAT Study Guide, created by the same people who make the test, will give you challenging questions similar to those on the exam? I don't think so. Gruber's Complete SAT Guide 2011 gives you difficult questions that will help you prepare properly for the SAT. I guarantee you that you will improve your score, it already happen to me ;)

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