Oh God I’m completely freaking out right now because of this.
I haven’t studied the SAT for a time, not since June, because I was focusing on my ACT.
I didn’t worry too much because every time I took some of the actual tests I always got around 750~800 in CR and Writing…
But here I am solving the practice tests in Barron’s and I get 5 wrong for EACH section!!!
Have my skills degraded so much during the past few months or is Barron’s much harder than the actual SAT?
Please HELP!
Ive founs the barrons and princeton review tests to be slightly harder so dont freak out too much. The point of those books do the harder practice so the youll do better on the easier ones. The tests in those books dont actually reflect your potential score.
Typically Barron’s over prepares you.
You should be fine :)>-
I was in the same boat after taking several Barron’s and Princeton Review prep tests and getting just under my goal on all of them. I took the real SAT today and I feel much better about it than I did any of those practice tests.
I think those books are aiming to over prepare you. Here’s how it works: you plan to take the SAT, and you buy a prep book. When you happen to choose a Barron’s book, you struggle with how hard their material is. You freak out and buy their other prep materials, and get to the point where you master the Barron’s prep tests. Then you get to test day, and you find the actual SAT to be a piece of cake compared to the practice tests you took. You think back on all that Barron’s prep you did and figure that’s what prepared you. You’re so happy with your SAT scores that you give Barron’s a good rep for getting you there. In reality, Barron’s just scared you with their difficult work so that you’d feel relieved when you did well on the actual test. There may have been little to no correlation between your Barron’s prep and the actual SAT score, but either way, you give Barron’s a good rep because you think they prepared you well.
Not sure if any of that made sense. It made sense in my head. In short, yes, the Barron’s tests tend to be harder than the real thing - because they want you to give them credit for that “relief” you feel on test day. Anyways, there’s no harm in overpreparing and doing so will definitely build your confidence and possibly raise your scores.
A lot of prep books and programs purposefully up the difficulty on practice tests to over prepare you and give you a more in-depth view of the concepts so you can tackle on any difficulty of questions. When using a book or studying in a program, take some of the past RC tests collegeboard released and see where your score really fares.