<p>Has anyone tried this book? I know we are in the age of the New SAT, but this book is supposed to be really really good on technique instruction.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Are you referring to the "Encyclopedia" with the list price of $300? Look at some of the Amazon.com review (but beware - some appear to be written by the author himself) and read the top third of this</a> thread</p>
<p>He was one of my sat tutors for a while, and so I have a copy of it. The book is very low-tech, with handwritten solutions and stuff. Essentially, they're a lot of level-5 types of math questions, a few pages of forumulae, and tons of vocab (but I found a combination of that vocab+gruber to be much better)</p>
<p>The author - Fikar - is a brilliant guy, though, and the woman who wrote most of the verbal section is the author of the book Hot Words from Barrons.</p>
<p>...it appears though, that the reviews of his book on amazon are very, very fake, and I recently sent Amazon a message about it.</p>
<p>There's a chance I'll sell my copy of it to someone (depends if my mom is cool with it or not). Let me know if you're interested.</p>
<p>isnet how is this fikar guy as a tutor. he charges like 8000 bucks as was written on his website.</p>
<p>Fikar claims, on his website to have "perfect" scores for all his exams, including the SAT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, AND MCAT. When I e-mailed him for proof of such perfect scores, he responded that he would respond only to inquires in person at his office, and refused to show me a single shred of proof for his scores (only his SAT scores are shown on his website), despite repeated requests. I know for a fact that not one person in history has ever scored perfectly on the MCAT (i.e., a 45), so he's blatantly lying on his website. I would also question that he has actually scored perfectly on the other exams, too.</p>
<p>And to try to charge $400 for a book -- as he initially did -- no matter how good is not exactly a sign of intelligence. And those Amazon reviews...</p>
<p>I got the book for $30 used on Amazon.com, and the book is total garbage. The math problems are absolutely unrealistic, and the handwritten comments are just plain laughable. Trust me, stick to 10 real SAT's.</p>
<p>He saw me as someone who could easily get a 1600 (some of the people fell under the category of 'the stupid rich'), and so he gave me packets of authentic questions to do. Class was every sunday from 3-7, i think, and there was a mandatory practice test on saturdays from 9 to 12. Had the class (of eight) had more intellegent kids in it like myself, I would have gotten a lot more out of it...but I still think it helped a hell of a lot. The big emphasis is on authentic tests. He has copies of every released exam dating back for a while.</p>
<p>As for tutoring in other subjects, I know that he's tutored people in mcat/lsat as I've seen the materials laying around the place. </p>
<p>I could go on for a while about my experience there...it was pretty....unique, to say the least.</p>
<p>tell us more. I just want to know how he justifies his $8000 price tag.</p>
<p>I don't really want to advertise the guy or anything....if you want to know why, I suggest you just call him yourself. He was pretty haughty the first time I met with him, and I challenge you to try and not smirk during the conversation.</p>
<p>He would never be at the center for the practice tests. Rather, the secretary, who I'll refer to as Vondelisha (as an ode to george carlin), would administer the test. After we finished taking it, she insisted that "The Professor" told her to grade the tests by hand. Ordinarily, this isn't too bad. In the heyday of my sat prep, I could score a practice test in about 40 seconds, i guess? I don't know. Vondelisha took anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes per test...times eight kids. On top of this, she often times did not score it properly, deducting points on omitted questions and whatnot. We also weren't permitted to leave without our scored tests so we could go over them the next day.</p>
<p>As you could imagine, Vondelisha was not the brightest crayon in the box. Whenever she spoke to us, her speech was long and drawn out...sort of like if you slowed down a tape player, except kept it at a normal pitch. Each week, during the tests, she would order in food for herself...always some cheeseburger combo from some restaurant down the street with a diet coke "with lemmmmoonnn". She would also make phone calls (personal and otherwise) to people during the test. The center itself was not very insulated - in regards to heat or sound - and we were always trying to cover the laguhter when she referred to someone as "pookie" once...it was a running joke. Once, she called some senator's office in Albany because she didn't get her tax refund for $34 or something. </p>
<p>Let me know if you want to hear more.</p>
<p>Definitely the most bizarre SAT preparation course.</p>
<p>wow thats pretty weird, go on</p>
<p>Is it worth it at all? Will it give ANY edge over any of the 20-30 dollar books floating around the market? I'm especially interested in the level 5 math practice questions and the supposed technique "short-cuts" for math. </p>
<p>Im currently memorizing The Princeton Review's Word Smart (3rd edition) list...it's not that comprehensive, but how much do you really need for the SAT? Is memorizing 4,000+ words the only way to get a perfect verbal?</p>
<p>I just feel stuck. It's not that I don't understand anything, it's just that my technique for finding answers on some of these level 4+ questions is way too time consuming and as a result I'm getting "gayed" by time-sucks.</p>
<p>I didn't find it particularly worthwhile. Maybe just the formulae and vocab (the 720 word list will only guarantee you a mid/upper 600...which is why I used Gruber too).</p>
<p>Can you give some examples of some helpful, time-saving formulas from the book? Not to extract "free-stuff" from you, I just really want to know if it's worth it. I really appreciate all of your feedback by the way on this post isnet396.</p>
<p>Things like areas/perimeters of sectors of a circle, area of an eqilateral triangle, odd/even properties, probability things....simple stuff, but things you need to konw very well.</p>
<p>I doubt that this Fikar guy has anything revolutionary to share that cannot be found in the countless other SAT books. He can charge as much as he can probably because he uses deceptive advertising and the clients in his town are extremely wealthy. There is a company named Inspirica in Manhattan that charges at least $300 an hour for SAT tutoring. Are they necessarily better than private tutors who charge much less (say, about $50 to $75 an hour)? No. $850 can buy you at least 10-15 hours of quality tutoring with a reputable tutor, as opposed to one hour with this guy. Will you learn more in 10-15 hours versus 1 hour, no matter how good this guy is? Most likely yes. If you want good, hard questions, use a book like Kaplan's SAT 2400.</p>
<p>Godot I've heard bad things about that book. For instance, some reviews on Amazon said that there several errors in the books that actually were detrimental to problem understanding.</p>
<p>George,</p>
<p>The math section does contain numerous mistakes, but the other parts are not bad. The SAT 1600 book actually has fewer errors, but it does not cover as many areas, of course.</p>
<p>Shut up eliteprincess. People like you offer this board nothing but spam and filler crap.</p>