Official SAT Study Guide: The College Board's Guide to the New SAT [Paperback]

Everyone knows that you need this book to get "official" SATs to practice with, because the College Board doesn't seem to let any of the other books publish their tests. Stay away from the knock-off tests in Princeton Review or their kind (like Rocket)-they AREN'T real SATs and they're full of mistakes. Even the tests in the "Official Guide" are a bit quirky, though, because the answer key only gives score "ranges" like "640-720" for an SAT math score. If I spend 4 hours taking a practice test, I want to know EXACTLY how well I did, not approximately!! Two other big drawbacks to this books are that the answer key contains NO ANSWER EXPLANATIONS, and the lessons in the book are very weak.

So, if you're serious about improving your score, and you're willing to do some work (like I was), you'll need a good review guide to go along with it. The best one by far is "McGraw-Hill's SAT I", but be SURE to get the second edition. The great thing about it is that when you take a practice test, it gives very detailed explanations of each answer, as well as REFERENCES to CONCEPT LESSONS that are excellent. It teaches you with a very effective method and gives lots of practice. I particularly liked the lessons on percents and negative exponents, which I ALWAYS had trouble with, and the lessons on Reading Comp, which realy helped me. It also has GREAT vocab lessons.

Take the tests in the "McGraw-Hill" book (which aren't real SATs, that's the drawback, they're a little bit harder) about 2 months before your SAT, then use the answer key to point you to the lessons you need to review. Then take the tests in the "Official SAT Study Guide" to see how you're improving (except remember that you'll only get that annoying "score range" which can be pretty wide). I did this before the October SAT, and my scores improved by 420 points overall, and just found out that I was accepted at my top-choice college. To see improvements like that, you ABSOLUTELY NEED the combination of books. I hope this helps you little ones!! :))

I am a verbal SAT tutor for the past 26 years. Here is my formula for success, and it is the reason that people pay me an insane amount of money to work with their kids. Step #1 -- Get the Barron's SAT book first. Do every test. Read the answer explanations carefully. Step #2 -- Get this book. Take the 8 practice tests, sitting straight through for each exam, 4 hours with the break. This book is easier than Barrons, so you should feel an improvement when you take these real tests. Get the book HOT WORDS FOR THE SAT by Linda Carnevale, and learn a few chapters each week. Good luck on the exam!!

"The Official SAT Study Guide" is "10 Real SATs" in all but name. Created and published by the College Board--the creators and administrators of the actual SAT--this series has for years been the single most valuable resource for SAT preparation. The value does not necessarily derive from the instructional material that makes up the first portion of the book (which is instructive and adequate, but nothing spectacular), but from the actual SAT tests from which the series used to get its name. While the multipound test-prep tomes from Kaplan, Princeton Review, and others all have their strong points, nothing beats having *actual SAT questions and tests* at your disposal; yes, there is a distinct difference between questions actually vetted by ETS and those created by third-party companies. Simply put, 10 Real SATs was *the* tool for preparing for the most overemphasized-yet-necessary test on the block.

The recent advent of the "New" SAT (which, for the record, removes Quantitative Comparisons and analogies, adds some higher math content, introduces "short" reading comprehension passages, and features a watered-down version of the old SAT II writing with an additional 25 minute, blink-and-you'll-miss-it essay section that receives far too much press) meant that the Real SAT product line was due for an upgrade. As prior "new editions" of 10 Real SATs rarely featured changes that weren't of a we-swapped-out-two-tests-and-added-in-two-new-tests character, I was curious to see how the College Board would revamp its flagship line. Unfortunately, it's a mixed effort.

For starters, we now have *8* full-length tests. Granted, each test is a decent bit longer--the new SAT is an absolute marathon--but the net effect is still a bit detrimental; needless to say, it's unsurprising that the College Board elected to avoid calling this book "8 Real SATs!" (These also aren't "real" SATs, a problem I'll get to momentarily)

The writing section is generally well introduced in the instructional material. As mentioned before, the "new" writing section is in reality a watered-down version of the old SAT II writing, but it's presented well. My big criticism here involves the book's treatment of the essay. It presents "samples" of good essays, bad essays, and essays in between. Page 123 presents an essay that supposedly received a score of "6" (the highest score available), and I'm halfway convinced that this example of SAT perfection is the cause of at least some of the overemphasis of the essay by panicked parents; pedantic, long-winded, and full of jargon, it sounds decidedly unlike something a normal high-school Junior would create in 25 minutes. There's another example of an essay that received the top score on the preceding two pages, and it is MUCH more palatable, but it is written in handwriting (as opposed to "handwriting font") and is thus frequently ignored...which is quite unfortunate.

The real problem with this book, though, is that those celebrated "real" SATs...well, aren't anymore. Oh, to be sure, these are still real College Board questions, and the book is still valuable for that alone. But these SATs were *never given*, and as such the scoring data--a valuable part of prior editions--is next to useless.

For example, instead of the one-through-five difficulty scale, we get a three-stage "easy, medium, hard" scale for ranking questions, which is far less useful than the ranked-by-reaction scores in the old book. Worse, the difficulty rankings seem to have no real basis in reality, especially in the new Writing section; whole sections that all receive an "easy" ranking will demonstrate distinct fluctuations in difficulty.

It's the scoring information, though, that is really the book's biggest flaw. With older editions, after struggling through a timed practice test, you received the satisfaction of getting a distinct score; those "Real SATs" were actually given, and thus raw scores were accurately weighted to a corresponding score on the infamous out-of-1600 scale. For the new SAT, this immediately becomes somewhat problematic, as the inclusion of the essay makes scoring of the writing section difficult. But as these SATs were never given, there isn't a real scale for the conversion of raw scores to weighted scores. Instead, the CB presents a *range* of possible scores; unfortunately, these ranges are often frustratingly broad and vague ("610-690" is a huge range to contemplate).

I suppose the above criticism is somewhat unfair, as the College Board was confronted with an unwinnable dilemma. On one hand, it could delay the revision of its flagship title until enough SATs had been administered to generate a "real SAT" book; on the other, doing so would result in the odd situation of the College Board not releasing an official guide to its own creation! This dilemma, however, does not excuse the College Board from creating a new edition that is decidedly less useful than preceding editions.

Verdict: Yes, "The Official SAT Study Guide" is still the best thing out there, as its ability to use actual SAT questions makes it an invaluable study tool. Be aware, though, that accurate scoring is almost impossible with the new edition.

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