<p>From what I have heard, prep courses for the SAT and ACT are usually trash. Kaplan and Princeton Review seem to be very bad from people's comments. I have heard that Studyworks and Testmasters are good. Can anyone confirm?</p>
<p>Never heard of those last 2. Princeton Review's arent that bad, and are often said on this board to be the best possible course there is. Their tests are the best non-collegeboard.com indicator tests availble, even though their teaching usually is minor. Kaplan is the most bottom as they are just terrible.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say in general that prep courses are trash...obviously those companies wouldn't still be big businesses if their products totally sucked. Especially with everyone being able to come into discussion forums and find out what others say about them.</p>
<p>I did Princeton Review's online course and I thought it was great. The materials are top-notch and a great complement to the CB tests. I like them much better than Kaplan. Haven't heard of Studyworks, though. TestMasters is fairly new to SAT prep, so I haven't used them either.</p>
<p>Testmasters is out of Houston and they are quite good. They will travel to your city if you can get a group together to do it. Many of my son's friends have done it and have found it quite beneficial. Much better than Kaplan!</p>
<p>i took princeton reviews course and it was a complete waste of time and money. The course is meant for retarded kids (exaggeration) they go over nothing but easy stuff... dont waste your time</p>
<p>I'm taking Princeton Review now. I'm learning a lot now. I've heard it will take you to a certain level and that you need to take other steps to move to the next level (such as Xiggi method, private tutor). I've also heard that Testmasters is a course that is geared more toward higher end scorers... and that it is very good.</p>
<p>I have heard generally good things about Testmasters. Studyworks has three different levels for courses which they say are for people scoring under 500 per section (average), between 500 and 650, and 650+. Of course, I would do the last one. I just wanted to know if it works...</p>
<p>Reading that link carefully and applying the knowledge is more important than all the listed courses combined.</p>
<p>'scuse me, dudewhoisnotcool, I am not a retard even if you exaggerate as best you can, and Princeton Review was just great for me. Comments like that aren't very helpful and they're insulting to quite a few of us. If it didn't help you, oh well, but don't say those of us who benefit from it are stupid.</p>
<p>I did the Prepme.com course and it worked really well for me. My tutor was really cool and had a great SAT score so I knew I was learning from someone who was young and interesting. </p>
<p>I don't understand why people take classes in classrooms. Do private tutoring or an online course because then it's customized. Why sit with 30 other people and here dumb questions being asked?</p>
<p>Amu's link has some great info about the Xiggi method. However, it's very long and contains a great deal of debating... some interesting, some very tedious and silly. I would read the first part this mega post and skip to the "entomom" summary of the Xiggi method... <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=68210&page=39%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=68210&page=39</a></p>
<p>One point I felt persuaded to take a semi anti-Xiggi position was on vocabulary... probably because Xiggi's vocabulary is better than mine. A couple of the professional tutors made some good points on this issue. Other than that, the Xiggi method seems quite solid and I'm using it now. His method really appeals to common sense and logic. I'm still having a bit of a problem to decide what source books are the best for this or that. This could cause you to waste time if you pick the wrong books.</p>
<p>98jhfg did i hurt your feelings? Are you going to go cry now like Joe Bloggs would? It seriously is retarded... they teach you how not to do the problem rather than just do it the right way.</p>
<p>umm im going to C2 right now and its actually probably one of the best prep classes. the first one i went to was crap and then i found c2 and its soooo good. its one on one with the students and im already improving :D</p>
<p>I agree with 98jfhg... Princeton Review is not for retards. However, I guess a person with the screen name "dudemanimcool" gets his kicks by putting other people down... it makes him feel superior.</p>