<p>I've heard both schools of thought about whether it's bad to study for the SAT with stuff that's not from the Collegeboard. In a "Tips from a 2400er" thread it said </p>
<p>"There is this mentality on CC that you should only stick to the blue book because those questions are real and the other ones are fake, and thus doing the fake ones dont help you, only doing the real ones do. I laugh at this philosophy. </p>
<p>If you seriously think you can get a 2300 by doing the 10 or whatever number tests in the blue book, then you must be a genius. I could literally go through that book in a couple weeks. For most people, 10 tests arent nearly enough to score 2300+. I probably did 50+ at least. </p>
<p>But I've also heard that practicing from Barrons, PR or whatever is useless because those types of questions are simply imitations of what's actually on the SAT. So I guess my question is, is practicing with non-Collegeboard materials a waste of time?</p>
<p>I am one of those who posted advises like that but now I am reconsidering. Yes, CB has released too few tests to practice on in order for an average person to get high results. They are enough only for those who scored high for the first time… I am starting to think that it is good to practice on other material first and learn basic skills, then finish with real tests to see how you are doing in real.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Each third party company has its strengths and weaknesses, though they are never identical to the real deal. For instance, Barron’s is decent at creating math and critical reading sections, but terrible at the writing section. Kaplan’s math sections are a joke but the company creates decent CR and W sections. I really like their writing section, actually, because it was the closest I thought to the real test. Princeton Review is okay all around but not necessarily the best out of the three. If you seriously fear that 10 tests by the SAT is not enough for you, I suggest that you save the last 4-5 tests from the BB for the last handful of weeks leading up to your SAT test. Before that, alternate between which company’s books you use. You’ll see noticeable fluctuations between your results with the tests of each company, but keep in mind that your real score will hover around what you get on BB tests.</p>
<p>Oh for god’s sake, anyone who has to take 50+ tests to get a 2400 is… uhm… well I could say “determined” but that’s not exactly the word I’m looking for. There are more important things in life than getting a 2400 on the SAT. Practice enough such that you score well, but don’t obsess.
I recommend doing practice problems from other books and taking real tests from the BB. And I do not recommend taking 50+ tests… that’s preposterous. 10 is more than enough.</p>
<p>As an SAT math tutor, here is what I have my students do:</p>
<p>I have my students take between 4 and 6 actual SATs over a 3 1/2 month period. So the blue book has more than enough for this purpose. </p>
<p>The rest of the time is spent doing SAT math problems for 10 to 20 minutes per day, and learning SAT specific math strategies (although I do meet with my students every other week for about 2 hours per session).</p>
<p>I have been tutoring SAT math for about 12 years now, and I have found this amount of time to be most effective. The average math score increase is about 90 points. Keep in mind that this number is skewed a bit by students that don’t do their work, and students that are starting with very high scores. If we were to eliminate these students, the average would probably be closer to 120 (this is just a guess - I have not actually computed this). </p>
<p>I agree with nelkypie. Don’t obsess over the SAT. Put in the amount of time I just suggested. Be consistent with your studying - study just a little bit every day, and don’t skip more than 1 day every 2 weeks. Do this for 3 to 4 months. Make sure you are applying the right strategies when you practice problems. Then just do the best you can on test day.</p>
<p>Haha I wan’t planning on taking 50 tests. I really just wondered if it was okay to practice with third-party materials when I didn’t feel like taking a whole test. And thank you to all who have replied; all your posts have been really helpful :)</p>