BB: Not the only book you need

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Believe it or not, BB is not the book that solves everything.</p>

<p>Stop misconstruing Xiggi's, Silverturtle's, and other people's advice.</p>

<p>The Blue book is a source of practice tests. No more, no less. It is not a book you can rely on to teach you material.</p>

<p>"But", you may be arguing, "what about the stuff Xiggi and Silverturtle said?"</p>

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<p>Nuff said.</p>

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<p>Notice how silverturtle only mentioned the practice test aspects of the BB. In no way does he claim that the BB will teach you the material. In fact, BB has perhaps the worst review out of any prep book.</p>

<p>Admittedly, reviewing practice test problems will probably help review a little bit, but think about how inefficient it is! First you take 30 min to do a section, and then another 30 min to review a fraction of the scope of material that is likely to occur on the test? Ridiculous!</p>

<p>When someone asks "How do I get that last 100 pts on M?", the answer is probably BB.</p>

<p>But, when someone asks "How do I improve my 500 on M?", BB is a terrible answer.</p>

<p>Hopefully my little rant made sense.</p>

2

<p>Yes, that’s true. If you need to review/learn the concepts, you should study from outside sources. But when it comes to practice tests, use only Collegeboard materials. Keep in mind, most people on CC know the material that is tested on the test, but need to practice application- for these individuals, the BB and other CB materials are the best materials to use. That’s why many people ignore the “learning” aspect of preparation and stress the “practice” aspect when giving suggestions to other members.</p>

3

<p>Yes, as helpful as the Blue Book’s practice tests can be, the advice in the book is all but worthless. And if you simply don’t know the material on the Math section, for example, taking practice tests won’t be as helpful as it could be.</p>

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<p>Correct, with the possible exception of vocabulary.</p>

4

<p>^ That’s true. Forgot about Direct Hits for a second :)</p>

5

<p>I read through many review books and found them relatively useless. The only valuable resource I have is the Blue Book. You forget to consider that a lot of people know the material well and just need to practice.</p>

6

<p>Actually the review books are as worthless as the BB. They repeat the same “unique strategy” which I heard about a million times over and over. Some which are so far into common sense that it’s not even worth commenting on.</p>

<p>For example, </p>

<p>“Bring 2 pencils”
“Eat a good break fest”
“Sleep early”</p>

<p>Are these actually strategies, or common sense after hearing them a million times for EVERY test we take?</p>

<p>Plus the “review” part is just what you do in school. Take out your notebook, and you will save your money.</p>

7

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<p>But if you only brought 1 pencil and it broke during the test? What would happen? YOU WOULD FAIL.</p>

<p>What if you skipped breakfast and found yourself starving during the test? EPIC FAIL.</p>

<p>What if you only got 2 hours of sleep and dozed off during section 2? FAILURE AT LIFE.</p>

<p>…See? The Princeton Review is totally worth the money. :)</p>

<p>(By the way, these are certainly not the only ‘strategies’ offered in the PR books. I wouldn’t even classify these as strategies.)</p>

8

<p>^ Except that they are in the BB, and are told in every test prep book :)</p>

<p>Plus Princeton’s review of the math could just be beat by using a notebook you used in math class (with notes of-course)</p>

<p>PR is useful for its 11 Practice Tests. Sure they aren’t as good as the BB, but any more practice is good. Being over-prepared is better then being under-prepared.</p>