<p>hi guys, i need some help. For the SAT 1... i bought the blue book and Barrons 2007-2008 edition. Do you think thats good enough for good preparation? I dont wanna spend a lot of money because i am already broke from buying AP Chem PR , and SAT 2 PR CHem stuff so help me out. I need work on everything. Do you think those 2 books will do the job?? Barrons and CB ?</p>
<p>Yep. A lot of people study using just the BB. Practice Tests are priceless. Also, have you checked your local library? Many times they'll have a couple study guides, too. Also, you can read Sparknotes online for free.</p>
<p>thanks butternut. i ll definitely take the library thing into consideration :] its just that i havent been to the library since 6th grade cuz i owe them too much money !! >_< but thankyou</p>
<p>You should think about what you need the most help on, and then pick a book based on that. Use the blue book to take a practice test, and then see what you need the most work on. For critical reading, get more exposure to reading, improve vocabulary (Barron's is good, I think), and learn certain strategies (Princeton Review). For math, I recommend using Gruber's or consulting an algebra book. Also, Sparknotes has good math advice. For writing, pick up a good book on English grammar and read my old advice for essay tips. Also RocketReview is good. I mostly used the library, you should too! Here's one of my old posts:</p>
<p>The very first thing to do is to visualize your goal. Your goal might be a perfect score, and it might not. A 2400 might be everyone's dream, but that's not realistic for everyone. You should start off by developing a reasonable goal for yourself and then take the steps necessary to achieve your goal. It's really not that difficult. </p>
<p>This is why I tell everyone who asks how to plan their study time (They ask, "How many hours a week? How much vocab a day? What books, magazines to read?" Those on CollegeConfidential get these questions quite often) to first take a practice test from The Official SAT Study Guide. Once you see your scores, set a reasonable goal. For May it may be difficult to get to a much higher score, but you have a while for October. For me, a reasonable goal was to get 100 points higher on each section once I started to study. For some it might be higher, for others it might be lower. The point is that you should set a reasonable and achievable goal and then go on to achieve that goal.</p>
<p>The next step is to go over EVERY question on the practice test to know EXACTLY what you did right and what you did wrong. The idea is this: Why make the same mistake over and over? Once you make a mistake, why would you want to do it again? You should look at your mistakes and take actions so that you don't make the same mistakes. That's really how you improve.</p>
<p>So, take a practice test, analyze every question, and then set a goal. The next step is to list out the ways to improve your score.</p>
<p>Blue book-- This is good for general reading and writing advice, but I don't think it's very sufficient. But it's great for practice tests. I hate the fact that they don't give explanations for answers, so you don't know what you might have done wrong and if there were any typos. </p>
<p>Princeton Review-- This is good for general test-taking strategies, but it tries to get you to take a bunch of shortcuts, which I don't like. Whether you like it or not, it's necessary to be able to read a newspaper, write a rough draft of an essay, and do simple math problems in order to get a higher score. I would probably read this first.</p>
<p>Grubers-- (Honestly, what good will all these test prep books do for you?) This is good for math and writing in general, but not for critical reading. But it does have a great vocab list. You should use this vocab list, but unfortunately they don't give examples of sentences using the vocab words, or at least not the edition that I checked out from the library (I never really bought any test prep books; I got them all at the library.).</p>
<p>RocketReview--okay, I don't know about the math section, because by the time I got to RocketReview, which I looked at just a week or two before the actual test, I was solid on math and didn't bother to look at it. The critical reading is good, and the writing section is great, although I disapprove of the idea of basically planning the entire essay in advance and squeezing the examples to fit the prompt--often it doesn't turn out well. Still, it was interesting the way they talked about the SAT essay.</p>
<p>Barrons2400--I don't know; I never looked at this book. </p>
<p>But you shouldn't just read the books from beginning to end; it won't help much. Test prep books are meant to be GUIDES, not books that will guarantee you the score you want. And in fact, I don't think that any amount of test PREP books are enough--they're simply there to give you help, but not guarantee you a certain score.</p>
<p>You should go over the books in the order that suits your goals. If you're very weak on math, go for Gruber's. By the way, you don't have to read the books from beginning to end. You could just read the Gruber's math section and skip the rest.</p>
<p>And, as always, I STRONGLY recommend that you improve reading score by actually reading stuff you're interested about. The purpose is just to make reading magazines and newspapers second-nature, not that reading x number of articles a day will improve your score by y points. I STRONGLY recommend that rather than just learn a bunch of shortcuts/formulas that might work in some cases and not in others, you actually LEARN the math. I STRONGLY recommend that for writing you actually learn the grammar (grammar books are better than test prep books) and you learn how to structure an essay and come up with a solid argument properly (and boy, do I have advice on that! You can probably find all my essay writing advice on the SAT threads around March 1.)</p>
<p>The order you read the books should suit your goals. First find a reasonable goal for yourself, then go about achieving it. It's not a matter of reading a lot of books from beginning to end.</p>