Kaplan SAT 2011: Strategies, Practice, and Review [Paperback]

Firstly, I am a college student, who has (clearly) already taken the SAT. However, I ordered this preparation book as part of the Amazon.com Vine Program. As an aspiring English teacher, I found the Kaplan SAT Strategies, Practice, and Review to be far more helpful than the Official SAT study guide, particularly because this 2011 edition of Kaplan's SAT Strategies, Practice, and Review presents many of the little tricks I learned on my own to score 800 on the writing section of the SAT.

Writing Section:

Kaplan 2011 presents a large number of sample essays. Kaplan really focuses upon the 4 P strategy of "Prompt (read and understand it), Plan (collect and organize your ideas and examples), Produce (write your essay), Proofread (check for consistency and errors)." Kaplan 2010 also demonstrates/explores certain characteristics of what makes an excellent 6 essay, including underscoring that essays of 300 to 400 words that are written legible, with often a few corrected mistakes, during a proofread, are far more likely than essays that are less than 300 words, appear hurriedly written, and contain to corrected mistakes. The College Board's Official SAT study, at least the edition I own, does not explore these issues.

As for the multiple choice questions (ex: improving sentence questions), Kaplan 2011 is slightly less thorough than I would have ideally liked. Also, I feel that occasionally some of the sentences contained more than one error, which would not have occurred if one had purchased the Official SAT preparation guide. However, I think that two errors in a Kaplan sentence makes one think even harder about what constitutes a grammatically-correct sentence.

Critical Reading Section:

I felt this section was average and not very different from the Official SAT Study Guide. Of courses, strategies were presented for how to take notes while critically reading a passage, but I did not find the strategies to be particularly helpful considering the time limitations.

However, after the 4 practices, at the end of the book, is a Root Word List and a Vocabulary Word List that defines vocabulary words that may appear on the Critical Reading section of the test. This may assist one in improving one's performance on the vocabulary portion of the Critical Reading section.

Math Section:

Kaplan spends a lot of time focusing on math, (i.e. from p. 178 to 287). The math chapters are entitled, "SAT Math Basics and Strategies," "Basic Math Concepts," "Advanced Math Concepts," and "SAT Math Traps." Overall, the math sections appeared quite helpful, since I must admit that math was never my favorite subject in high school.

Finally:

To each of the 4 complete practice tests, Kaplan provides clear explanations for each problem. While this has become the norm for test preparation guides, I think it is helpful to know that Kaplan's explanations to problems were frequently helpful.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT:

I would recommend this test preparation book in place of the Official SAT Study Guide.

I've worked with inner-city kids on SAT prep for a couple years now, so I'm always looking for new resources to help them prepare. While I've used the Kaplan SAT in a Box flashcards, I've been kind of a purest in using the College Board's The Official SAT Study Guide, 2nd edition. But I'm now a convert.

This book is amazingly detailed and includes great tips from professional tutors and past perfect-score students. I love that the concepts are addressed with clear explanations, step-by-step examples and multiple sample questions. It's well organized, and though the thickness of the book makes it look overwhelming, the majority of the content is sample tests. This book is designed to make students feel at ease about the SAT and confident in the concepts they will face. It even takes time to explain to parents how the test has changed since they took it and why their students might feel more pressure than they did twenty years ago.

As for each individual section, the writing section is extraordinarily helpful when used in conjunction with the vocabulary lists in the back of the book. It could have used a lot more practice essays as that is what my students always struggle to understand. The reading section is adequate, but I wish it would have provided a new way of looking at critical reading. Although I do admit I really like their annotated reading passages than encourage students to mark up their tests. The math section is pure gold--there's really not much more I can say about it. It helps build knowledge of common mathematical concepts students will see on the test and offers practical problem-solving advice.

However, I do have a couple of concerns. The first is that the book spends so much time discussing tips and tricks that it looses sight of what the SAT is supposed to be testing. This is not a test you are supposed to BEAT but an indication that you KNOW what you need to succeed on the college level. My second concern is that this isn't produced by the organization that actually writes the SAT. So while the sample tests and preparation material are based on previous tests and information released from College Board, there's no way to know how accurate it all is.

Overall, this is a great guide and far less intimidating than any other I have used. I'll see how well my students receive it and if it helps them in the coming year.

The book was divided up nicely amoung test, a good self assessment with timed sections and 5 actuat tests at the back of the book. The answers sheet gave full explanations whay the correct answers were chosen. My son preferred Kaplan over Barrons. He said Batton's works book had antiquaited paragraphs and vocabulary. Kaplan gave lots of test tips and SAT test traps, 'what to look out for' clues. He is very happy with this book and also ordered the Educational Testins Service their own SAT 10 test booklet.

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