<p>whats the best book to learn strategic ways of the ACT besides the real act book?</p>
<p>go for Priceton Review's cracking the ACT on amazon.com for $12. however, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT follow their suggestions for the reading section. I think ACT got wind of what kinda "tricks" they were teaching with that and re-wrote the test to make their strategies extremely harmful to use. I got a 33 on every section except their reading. On the reading, I tried to use their strats, they didn't work, and got a 25. Their idea is to not read the paragraph at all and try to answer in depth questions about it.
But, I photocopied half the Real ACT book at my school library (free), and used it for the additional practice.
Barrons really sucks when it comes to test review. For subject review, they easily outpace everyone else. However, they teach sooooooo much unneccessary info. Like for the Math IIC SAT II, they talked about DeMoivre's theorem. Hell, I hadn't even heard of that theorem, and I am in PreCalc H with a solid A! Their AP Spanish Lang. review was terrible compared to the simple concise stuff PR offered.
Overall, the ACT, IMHO is extremely easy <em>compared</em> to the SAT. Bottom Line: PR really targets the test, but may be a little too "easy" in their review.</p>
<p>If you have money to throw around, get all 3 books. Go in the following order: PR, Real, Barrons.</p>
<p>If i shouldn't use their reading strategies then which ones should i use?</p>
<p>dont use anything i guess, surgeon, its more of a practice type thing, once you take several practices you automatically start pacing yourself better. remember time is prolly the key issue</p>
<p>The REAL ACT book is the best one. It's only 20 dollars, and it's not frustrating like Barrons and it's harder than Mcgraw.</p>
<p>My daughter also found that following the PR tips for reading hurt her score. Not reading the passage and trying to answer by just reading the line numbers given did not work as the whole context was not always there. She went back to quickly reading the passage before doing the questions.</p>
<p>So I guess just by following the Practice Tests from the Official Guide and maybe touch the Barrons just for the heck of it.</p>
<p>I dont really like Princeton Review because :</p>
<p>1) i hate the color in what they put it.. thats so wierd. RED out of random and no other PR prep book has it. </p>
<p>2) the reading/science strategies are confusing.</p>
<p>I like it:</p>
<p>1) Mostly Accurate tests
2) Like the English Strategies and outlines everything we need to know as well as Math.</p>
<p>But I think im better off learning the Reading and Science from Barrons or from Official Guide because the PR confused the hell out of me today...</p>
<p>does McGraw (i think thats what its called) give accurate practice tests?</p>
<p>no lol, especially math. got a 35 on mcgraw hills, got a 29 on the real thing lol</p>
<p>It seems to me that in general, Barons has confusing books (I had the Barons book for AP chem, and it had a lot of extraneous information). Does this hold true for other subject matters/ their SAT and ACT study books?</p>