<p>Are the SAT/PSAT help courses (Kaplan, for example) actually helpful, and even if they are helpful, are they worth the $900 that they cost? I would really like to take one, but $900, wow...</p>
<p>i took PR and loved it, i dont know anyone who has the will to put themselves manually through like 80 hours of SAT prep... and take that many practice SATs in serious conditions in the prescribed amount of time. .. but i guess if u are this master of discipline maybe the course is for you</p>
<p>My son took Testmasters and thought that it offered a lot of realistic practice tests. The classes themselves are taught by different instructors who cover specific strategies that he found very helpful, especially for the essay and the reading passages. His scores went up fairly significantly on CR and Writing, and he got an 11 on his essay.</p>
<p>Testmasters also provides predicted word lists of vocabulary words for each testing date and it turns out that they're pretty accurate. (A lot of the words on the word list they gave out actually showed up on the January test.)</p>
<p>By the way, if you decide to go with Testmasters, here's a $25 off coupon you can use: <a href="http://koch.afraid.org/testmasters-coupon.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://koch.afraid.org/testmasters-coupon.pdf</a></p>
<p>How much do these other programs cost? And also, is the Princeton Review one alot shorter than the Kaplan one? Thanks for the replies so far; I really know nothing about any of these programs.</p>
<p>Well, they're fairly expensive. I think PR and Kaplan cost about $1,000. Testmasters is a little cheaper -- about $700. If you're very disciplined I think you could get good results on your own, but it's not easy to be so disciplined. The structure of the courses really help not only with providing strategy, but also to pace the learning so that you are primed for when the SAT date arrives. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks for the coupon.</p>
<p>Also, which one of the test helps would you prefer? I looke at testmasters, but they don't offer it in my area (Chattanooga, Tennessee), but Princeton Review and Kaplan do. Kaplan is $100 less than PR, but is PR better? Also, how much did you alls' scores go up?</p>