I’ve purchased prepscholar and used it for about two weeks.
Overall, I think their idea is great. Online prep designed to drill on your weakness areas. This is the main reason why I purchased prepscholar. I thought I could prep with their program for 50+ hours with realistic questions.
I’ve only used their product for two weeks but I was already done with their program! They claim to have “1400+ realistic questions.” but I HIGHLY doubt they have that many. Why? When I was retaking my quizzes, I OFTEN saw the questions I saw in previous quizzes. They claim that it is important to be quizzed with questions in the past because it helps you retain that mistake. I agree but I feel like after paying $399, I deserve more than just one set of questions. This, I assume, is because they do not have that many questions. I assumed I would be able to have plenty of practice questions (1400+). Basically, my skills were moved to “Mastery” because I could answer the questions I’ve missed in the past. Don’t you think this is kind of absurd? Shouldn’t I be tested with new questions to see if that skill is “mastered.” I certainly do not feel like some of my skills were “mastered.” I feel like I just understood my mistakes and that’s why I got the questions right.
Not only that, some of their lessons were buggy. I couldn’t even finish a quiz because it was glitched and had 0 questions in it.
Pros of Prepscholar:
Their lessons are great. I love how they have drill questions and really make you understand why wrong answers are wrong. After I’ve read their lessons, I now see the test questions in a different way. 3 WRONG answers and 1 correct answer. In the past, when I saw SAT questions it was more like 2 good answers and 2 bad answers.
Cons of Prepscholar:
As of now, I feel like they do not have enough questions. With the price tag of $399, I kind of doubt it’s worth paying that much to get a set of questions per skill area. I assume this is because the SAT was redesigned and they are trying to make more questions. But isn’t it false advertising to claim to have “1400+ realistic questions”?
Sorry for the incoherent rambling. I was kind of upset…
The Khan Academy stuff is pretty bad as well. Lots of very unrealistic questions. One vocab-in-context/diction question asks if you want to replace “bore” with “boer” or “bohr.” Oof.
In general, prep companies are rushing to get their acts together for the new test. Be wary of big claims and expect inchoate programs.
I’ve been looking at Khan Academy for SAT math, and I’m seeing content that does not appear in any questions on any of College Board’s actual released material (the practice PSAT; the four SAT practice tests; the two 2015 PSATs). What I can’t tell is whether the questions are faulty (i.e., Khan Academy doesn’t know what the SAT is going to test and how the SAT is going to test it) or whether Khan Academy has some inside information about content that simply hasn’t yet appeared on any published College Board material but might still appear on the actual SAT.
@bjkmom @marvin100
I agree. Khan Academy has unrealistic questions. That’s why I turned to private companies like Prepscholar for better questions. Unfortunately they don’t have enough questions.
When do you think we will have quality practice material?
I’ve purchased some books from Barron’s, Kaplan, and Princeton Review and I realized many of their questions arent really realistic (and have tons of errors -_-)
@YoLolololol I don’t know. I agree with you about the quality of what’s out there. All I can say is that flawed material is better than no material. Rough, though, I know.
@nw2this
Nope, it doesn’t have any lessons on the new essay yet. HOWEVER, if you write an essay from the new blue book and scan and it upload it, they grade it and send you feedbacks on how you can improve.
I personally haven’t tried using the essay yet.
With the 3 wrong, 1 correct thing, basically prepscholar shows you what kind of answers are wrong and WHY it is wrong. After you do several exercises on reading, you should start to see patterns on the wrong answers. I think this is the best thing i got out of prepscholar.
Prepscholar doesn’t have video instruction. Why pay $300 for a bunch of articles you can read basically for free elsewhere? I don’t like their online quizzes because it’s highly ineffective to solve problems on a screen (at least for me it is). I would rather spend my time doing real practice tests.
Taking the New SAT as a member of the class of 2017 is a gamble. This test is brand new, and nobody knows how College Board is making questions/curving. Might as well take the ACT.
Do you mean they don’t have video for the new SAT or they don’t have video for any of their test prep? I’m strongly considering prep scholar for summer ACT prep for my D. I love how their site has answers to so many questions that I google.
I’m guessing if you did well on the PSAT you will probably do well on the new SAT.