<p>So, for the Tests i'm taking, i'm getting 25 wrong without the penalty, which is really embarrassing. However, on the real tests I took, I missed 16 the first time, and 19 the second time. I'm wondering If the Barrons Critical Reading is genuinely harder than the real thing, or is it a valid book?</p>
<p>You really shouldn’t use any other book than the BB except for tips/strategies.</p>
<p>This have helped a lot, and Grammatix too:</p>
<p>[The</a> SAT Reading Comprehension: Basic Principles - FamilyEducation.com](<a href=“SAT Critical Reading Tips”>SAT Critical Reading Tips)</p>
<p>Barron’s SAT book is super hard. So yes, Barron’s CR <em>is</em> genuinely harder. Sometimes I don’t quite agree with their reading answers, but I think their math is extremely good practice.</p>
<p>I have it, and personally do not like it. I mean, its good practice if you want to hone your skills before you practice from the blue book. The answers are extremely arguable. I always seem to believe my answers are more correct than the vague explanations they offer. So yeah, take them for practice, but try to stick to the blue book. If you want some more official tests to practice with (but not score), get one of the official books made before the sat and just do the comprehension. They’re great. I’m sure this will surely increase your score. Also, what aares1 posted is awesome, too. Good luck!</p>
<p>The thing about the blue book is that they don’t provide explanations. It’s hard to self-study with that book :(</p>
<p>Yes they do ^</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to the Official SAT Study Guide Book Owner’s Area](<a href=“SAT Study Guide – SAT Suite | College Board”>SAT Study Guide – SAT Suite | College Board)</p>
<p>omg thanks!!!</p>
<p>I am usually making 7-9 mistakes on CR and yesterday I took a test from Barron’s and got 17 questions wrong. That was really disappointing 
I even couldn’t understand one text at all, it was hard to guess what was that all about. I noticed that the questions on the real SAT are more specific referring you to the exact place where the answer is but on Barron’s tests there are many questions without reference so most of the time you have no idea where to look for the answer. Passages from Barron’s also seem to be taken out of the context, real SAT’s passages always have a clear development. Sentence completion questions also look more ambiguous than the real SAT’s.
I am just glad that while doing Barron’s tests I get to exercise my vocabulary and learn few words.</p>
<p>^I agree, although I really couldn’t tell the difference between the sentence completions (maybe because I’ve never had too much of a problem with those). Nevertheless, I absolutely LOVE the amount of practice Barron’s provides, and the questions are similar enough to the real thing to be worth the time doing it. That said, it does have a few ambiguous questions and nonexistent line references, but the latter does give you more practice looking through the passage.</p>
<p>The passages are definitely harder. The questions are sometimes written badly, and many people don’t like Barron’s, but I actually found it very useful.</p>
<p>Difficult? Perhaps.
Different? Definitely.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why people say Barron’s CR is much harder. In my opinion, it’s just different. The questions don’t reflect what CB tests on the real tests.</p>