<p>I hope all of you are having a great weekend. :)</p>
<p>This thread is targeted towards those who attended expensive SAT prep courses before. </p>
<p>For those of you who enrolled into SAT prep courses from the major test prep companies, I'd like to know if these courses were beneficial to you. </p>
<p>Did you see an improvement in your scores after attending these courses? Or was there no measurable improvement?</p>
<p>Overall, do you feel that attending these courses was worth the money?</p>
<p>I don’t know about other prep courses but DO NOT sign up for the Kaplan SAT prep course. The classes are usually filled with idiots who can’t do basic Algebra or write coherent sentences. You spend 6 hours a week filling out a blank Kaplan SAT prep book when you SHOULD be spending 6 hours doing practice problems out of the blue book. </p>
<p>Kaplan claims to personalize your lesson but they don’t. I’m in Pre-calculus and the teacher spent 30 mins trying to explain to the entire class why (x+y)^2 != (x^2+y^2). </p>
<p>If you really want to do well, grab a copy of the Blue book and Direct Hits at your local bookstore and that should be all you will ever need for the SAT.</p>
<p>Yeah, the general consensus is that if you have at least a bit of motivation, it would save you money and help you more to study out of the blue book on your own. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t go as far as to say the teacher cannot do basic algebra.</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant the students can’t do basic Algebra. The teacher spent 30 mins explaining it to the students because they didn’t understand why (x+y)^2 = (x^2+y^2) didn’t work.</p>
<p>I’ve heard TestMasters is pretty intense and worthwhile, though they’re not all over the US. Heard some good things about TPR as well. I looked at a few online courses, and from the trials/sample videos, those may be worthwhile checking out. </p>
<p>There’s nothing ‘special’ SAT courses can teach you (you could always just ask around here or google some techniques), they just force you to sit down and concentrate on practicing.</p>
<p>My siblings and I took Testmasters all with good results. We found that the the writing and critical reading strategies were pretty unique and different from elsewhere. The testmasters strategies seemed to work better for us than the other courses our parents made us take. However, math did not help as much (probably because we were already good at it.) I took the classroom course, but the online course allows you to watch classes over and over. This is what my youngest brother did (testmasters online course) and he got a 2380 on the January 2011 SAT.</p>
<p>I found it helpful only in the fact that it motivated me. The things I ‘learned’ in there I could’ve easily learned on my own with practice and time, but the fact that I had to go there every week and show the teachers and the students I could solve the problems without getting half of them incorrect made me actually practice. That and that we were paying for it. </p>
<p>So, if you’re highly motivated, it’s not much of a use. I feel that a personal tutor or a small-group prep course would be the best for people to take then the fancy one with big names. (Of course, you’d have to make sure the teacher was still good.)</p>
Sorry, I was just confused by what you meant. Otherwise, you’re absolutely right.</p>