<p>I have CB Blue Book "The Official Sat Study Guide" 1st edition and the Princeton Review 11 Practice tests.</p>
<p>I am almost done with them and my scores are about</p>
<p>Math: 700-800
Writing: 670-800
Reading: 580-680</p>
<p>I REALLY want to get a 2250-2350 on the real SAT so I am trying really hard. </p>
<p>What new books should I get? </p>
<p>I was thinking Barron 2400 and Rocket Revolution Review.
I especially need help with critical reading.</p>
<p>Barrons is very comprehensive but some of their questions are obscure/unrealistic in regards to what is actually on the exam. Barrons has good prep sections, but they’re tests tend to be more difficult. McGraw Hill tends to be too easy, and I would stay away from the REA books. This leaves you with Kaplan’s premiere SAT book, which is pretty good, and has a lot of good tests for you to look at. Also I’d advise you to get a book for vocab words (like Hot Words for the SAT 
) since sentence completions can kill your CR score if your not ready for them. That’s my take, but once you want to break the 2250 barrier, it’s more about being a good test-taker (reading passages fast, staying focused, finding shortcuts) than actually knowing the information from the books.</p>
<p>You might want to get the old 10 real SAT’s from the collegeboard. They are out of print but you can buy used ones off amazon. They follow the old test format and the questions are a bit hard (CR-wise), but it’s good prep, nonetheless.</p>
<p>You seem to have a good grasp on math, so I would recommend what runi27 said about breaking the 2250 barrier, focus on what it means to be a good test-taker (like when i was taking practice tests, I’d always miss one super easy math problem, but I learned how to work slowly and carefully).</p>
<p>CR-wise, vocab books are you best friends because you can pick up easy points in the sentence completion part. I recommend Direct Hits and Hot Words for the SAT. I also memorized sparknotes top 1000 words, and PR’s hit parade. Again the old Sat book is pretty good for CR.</p>
<p>Writing, read a small pocket guide on grammar. And definitely look at the how to write a 12 essay in 10 days thread here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html</a></p>
<p>and the essay prompt archive</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/764514-sat-essay-prompt-archetypes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/764514-sat-essay-prompt-archetypes.html</a></p>
<p>If you can get your paws on a RR, then all the power to you!</p>
<p>Be careful using the old SAT books. The critical reading section on the old SAT was 30 minutes long and now on the new SAT 2 of the 3 reading sections is only 25 minutes. I would use The 10 Real SAT book as a last resort when you have worked through all the current College Board materials. </p>
<p>Rocket Review will be very very expensive because it is out of print.</p>
<p>I recently looked at the most recent Hot Words book and was very surprised to see that it did not include some of the hardest words from the October 09 SAT like crystallize and polymath. It looks like all they did was change the color of the highlighted words and reorganize a few sections. I think the 2011 Direct Hits books would be a better choice.</p>
<p>Your reading scores are low, and will be a big obstacle in your path.</p>
<p>You must mention where you are making mistakes. Are you not able to do sentence completion questions? Once you build your vocabulary, they are easy points. Otherwise, they will totally destroy your score if you just can’t figure out what the words mean.</p>
<p>If you are having difficulty in comprehending passages, then that will be a little harder to improve, since so much comes down to your intuition. Moreover, no prep book can “tell” you how a surefire formula for answering reading comprehension. You have to have an inkling for it, and lots of common sense.</p>
<p>Also, the range of your Writing score is a bit too vast. What is your average score on the Essay? On the MCQs?</p>
<p>I just read somewhere that the biggest predictor of the reading score is vocab. I think this makes sense based on my exp. What really helped me improve (I ended up with a 2290) is a couple of books (Essential SAT Vocab for Reading, 10 SAT Vocab Practice Tests) that focus on vocab that comes up over and over again in the reading passages and questions. </p>
<p>These really worked for me between my 1st and 2nd tests, and they might help get you over the hump too.</p>
<p>DON’T get Barrons 2400 book. Get the cr workbook or regular prep book instead. Also, I recommend the collegeboard online course; it helped me improve from a 2230 to a 2310. Goodlyck! :)</p>
<p>The Barrons sat book I’m talking about also has a giant word list. I studied and memorized most of it and it really helped me. In my experience, direct hits didn’t have many of the harder words. But then I prefered having just a list and memorizing it… :)</p>