Hey guys! So I have both a KA account and bought the 4 in 1 princeton review book in order to prepare for the SATs. I’m planning to use both, but the KA material just seems so much more organized and the curriculum is very easy to follow. Am I falling into a trap? I find that for me, it is best to review questions that are extremely similar to the actual tests, so that I am familiar with the format. Does KA provide such practice? Thanks!
Sorta. There are definitely flaws (KA Reading material includes question types that are not on the real rSAT, for instance). It’s still good, though.
Son, who is a junior in high school, prepared for the SAT using only Khan Academy and the Warner advanced math book. He was very happy with his results.
His reading score on the real SAT was similar to his scores on Khan’s practice tests. He did better on the real math test than on any of the Khan practices.
KA is bound to be pretty accurate, since KA did partner with CollegeBoard when designing the new SAT exams. That being stated, it’s always better to try to get practice exams from CollegeBoard directly along the way.
Some of the math practice skills are way more time consuming than actual SAT questions. I think the content is good and if you start practicing early or have a lot of time I think it is ok. But if you are pressed for time I think you would do better by focusing on the CB published tests.
The other thing about KA is that on the timed tests you lose a bit of time writing down some initial steps as you cannot write on the screen. Obviously, if you are super good and don’t need to do that that’s great but for a lot of students is a negative.
That’s what I thought, too, until I analyzed all released exams and all KA practice material…
KA covers some things that aren’t there, and I find that the 10-11 question quizzes on English have an inconsistent difficulty, and that the Narrative section generally tends to be harder than on the practice tests.
Nevertheless, it is still helpful to use it to get used to the format and find out the expectations.
@TheGreyKing If you don’t mind me asking. What was his score and what score did he target achieving.
Honestly how much do you mean by a lot of time? I got 2 months in my summer break.
I believe the eight tests on KA are the same ones in the newest College Board books. I think they are fairly accurate.
Having used KA as my main source of prep for the SAT, I can tell you that the math is worth practicing, even though you may end up practicing some of the hardest types of questions (only one or two of which will be on any given test). That said, I was able to answer all but one question on my SAT math with ease, getting an 800 on it. Now is KA the perfect tool in terms of practice for the SAT? Probably not. But I found that it was a pretty good way to practice the specific types of questions you have a tendency to get wrong.
I used the English practice less often and didn’t really enjoy it, but I ended up doing fine on the real version anyway so I can’t really tell you if that really helped me or not