<p>Some of the most asked questions in this forum are questions like "Are Barrons practice test harder?" and "Is Sparknotes accurate?". Since we already have a list</a> of the best review books, I think we should also have a list of whether a specific practice test is similar to the real test or not.</p>
<p>When you want to "rate" or give your opinion of a certain practice test for a certain subject (i.e. Barron's for Math II, Sparknotes for US History, etc.), please use the following format:</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test:
How accurate the practice test is:
Your score(s) on the practice test:
Your score on the real test:
Any other comments you have:</p>
<p>For "How accurate the practice test is", use a scale from 1 to 5 to rate the test, with:
1 meaning "Way Easier than the real test"
2 meaning "Easier than the real test"
3 meaning "Very similar to the real test"
4 meaning "Harder than the real test"
5 meaning "Way harder than the real test"</p>
<p>An example is the following:</p>
<p>
[quote]
The subject test and the practice test: Barron's for Math Level II
How accurate the practice test is: 5
Your score(s) on the practice test: Ranging from 640 to 660
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: Barron's is way harder. Don't use it for preparations unless you definitely want to score an 800.<br>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: Kaplan for Math Level 2
How accurate the practice test is: 3
Your score(s) on the practice test: Ranging from 760 to 800
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: This is pretty accurate; I hear Barron’s is unnecessarily hard and this works just fine.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: Kaplan for Chemistry
How accurate the practice test is: 3
Your score(s) on the practice test: Ranging from 780 to 790
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: Same as above; good book to get.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: Sparknotes for Biology
How accurate the practice test is: 2
Your score(s) on the practice test: 740 - 780
Your score on the real test: 740
Any other comments you have: Too simplistic. Not enough information or review. Thank god I got another review book as well. </p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: Princeton Review Biology
How accurate the practice test is: 3
Your score(s) on the practice test: 680 - 760
Your score on the real test: 740
Any other comments you have: This was much better. Clear, concise. Good review, easy to understand. Saved my life.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: Princeton Review Biology
How accurate the practice test is: 5
Your score(s) on the practice test: 700-750
Your score on the real test: 730
Any other comments you have: some of the PR questions were on the real SAT bio exam (Oct 2009). it was awesome.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: ThinkTank Learning Unveiled series for Chemistry
How accurate the practice test is: 4
Your score(s) on the practice test: 680-730
Your score on the real test: 780
Any other comments you have: Very good review wise, did much better than I expected.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: SparkNotes for Math IIc
How accurate the practice test is: 3 (I don’t think it was necessarily harder, just slightly different)
Your score(s) on the practice test: 800 (1 question wrong without a graphing calculator! I found that kind of weird)
Your score on the real test: 800 (needed to use a graphing calculator for 3-4 questions here)
Any other comments you have: I don’t know about how much SparkNotes taught me; I did the practice test long before I used it to study.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: SparkNotes for Chemistry
How accurate the practice test is: 4 (significant difference in difficulty, but not too extreme)
Your score(s) on the practice test: 680 (mind you, this is before studying at all)
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: Some of their explanations to some questions were wrong, and they did make a few mistakes here and there. Other than that, I crammed SparkNotes chemistry for 9 hours the day before the exam and it turned out fine…so I don’t have any complaints :D.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: SparkNotes for Physics
How accurate the practice test is: 4 (moderately harder)
Your score(s) on the practice test: 740 (again, without studying)
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: I did the real test in Oct 2009; there was absolutely no rotational motion (SparkNotes gives that an entire chapter - helped a LOT for AP Phys C though!) and the questions were shockingly simple. Crammed for 2-3 hours the day before, good-ish in terms of material covered.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: McGraw-Hill for Math II
How accurate the practice test is: 3, kind of 4.
Your score(s) on the practice test: 600s-700s
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: The problems were, in general, a bit harder than the actual test. The beginning part (they have kind of a “review concepts” and then the tests) with the review was good and thorough. I learned some concepts in there that I believe came along useful.</p>
<p>The subject test and the practice test: REA for Math Level II
How accurate the practice test is: 5. Such a 5.
Your score(s) on the practice test: Probably in the 400s…
Your score on the real test: 800
Any other comments you have: I opened this book to look over the morning of my SAT. It made me cry.</p>