<p>Besides the Blue Book, which prep book is the best for Critical Reading? I want to save the practice tests in the Blue Book in order to accurately gauge my score progression/improvement. From what I've heard, apart from TCB materials, no other company accurately matches the test in type or difficulty. Also, which company has the most accurate Critical Reading?</p>
<p>Well, I don’t have experience with a variety of books, but I used the Princeton Review book and it helped boost my Critical Reading score from a 670 to an 800. To be fair though, I find that Critical Reading is really something that you don’t learn to do from “prep books” so much as something you learn to do by practicing. My suggestion is to save 5 or 6 practice tests in the blue book to gauge your score progression like you wanted, and to use the other 4 or 5 as sources for practice questions to get the hang of the different types of things you will be asked.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it does not really matter which prep book you use. They are testing you on the same skill, which is comprehensive understanding of what you read. You could read anything, but as long as you can correctly analyze the text, you will be ready for the SAT.</p>
<p>@Des4mond thanks for the suggestion and advice, I’ll take a look at Princeton Review.</p>
<p>@milos112
Are you sure all prep books are helpful? Barron’s is extremely difficult!!! I was extremely discouraged when I could barely comprehend the questions. Ambiguities in answer choices are ubiquitous in that book, and I highly doubt I would have to identify whether a passage was a “shaggy-dog story” for example.</p>
<p>ell, obviously you should take some practice tests too (from the blue book), but if you want to get close to an 800 on CR, it is IMPERATIVE to use “The Essential 500 Words” by Larry Krieger. Take it from me, I studied 25 practice tests in addition to 2 large SAT books and around 1000 words. Barron’s 500 usually score around 2-3 words on the SAT, and so does Princeton. But Essential scored EVERY SINGLE correct word on my SAT (around 20 or so). I just got a 770 on Critical Reading (June Sunday 2013 SAT). And his book scored over 15 words on most SAT’s, not only mine.</p>