<p>So I'm taking the SAT I in May this year and have been recommended a certain tutor in my neighborhood. I started a couple of weeks ago, but I've noticed, out of the books she's made me purchase (Barons, PR, CB), she only makes me do practice tests (especially concentrating on CR and writing) from CB. And I do reasonably well in them. But the problem is - a lot of people have told me to avoid using CB completely and to only focus on Baron/PR. I'm confused now... how realistic are the tests in 1) CB, 2) Barons, 3) PR and how should I be studying? </p>
<p>A friend who got 2250 told me she did it like this:
Baron - Math sections + word list + practice tests
PR - tests and English sections
CB - nothing</p>
<p>:/ </p>
<p>I feel like I have no clue as to what I'm doing.</p>
<p>By CB, do you mean CollegeBoard, Bluebook? If so, that is all I used to prepare; I did like 4-5 practices (I forgot by now :P). I got a 2300, so it worked out ok, not exactly what I was hoping for though. 2 of the tests in that book were real SATs, so the questions in there will be more like real SAT questions.</p>
<p>Yeah the blue book - the “official study guide”. Surprising because most people tell me the tests are far too unrealistic. But anyway wow congratulations
Any other opinions?</p>
<p>College board’s blue book is actually the ONLY place you should take practice tests from. Barron’s has a good writing workbook and I’ve heard pretty good things about Princeton review, but you shouldn’t take practice tests out of those books. If you need more official tests, you can get ten more from college board’s online course. The college board’s tests are better because some are actually past SATs. The college board tests give you a more accurate representation of your actual SAT (the one in May) is like.</p>
<p>Thank you caughtintraffic
Yesterday, I did a practice test from the CB book, well only the CR and writing & scored 740 and 730 respectively. Today, I did a past paper from CB (the one you have to pay for I think, my tutor gave it to me) and found it much tougher. I scored 690 and 670 in CR and writing respectively. I asked a friend who had a CB book test as well as a past paper offered by CB and she was in the same situation - her score dropped considerably.
How is it that within CB there are these disparities?</p>
<p>I scored above 2300 on my SAT and I used the Blue Book almost exclusively for taking practice tests.</p>
<p>Many different tutors or “academies” have different opinions on which publisher’s books are better for prep. I will give o you my opinion based on my experience.</p>
<p>Princeton Review’s “cracking the sat” was useful to learn strategies and to become more familiar with tactics for test taking.</p>
<p>However, for actual practice tests I found the blue CB book the most useful by far. I found the tests in the blue book more realistic/close to the real tests in every section.</p>
<p>I know that many of the local academies and prep tutors use different books to teach students, but ultimately assess their progress through administering full length practice tests from the blue book.</p>
<p>For my prep I cut up the blue book tests and either took them in sections for practice, or in their entirety when I wanted to simulate the real SAT.</p>
