<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Does anyone have knowledge about or experience using the "SAT Prep Black Book: The Most Effective SAT Strategies Ever Published" by Mike Barrett? </p>
<p>If so, is this book recommended to one who aims to score 2300+ on his or her SAT? In addition, is it effective for the Critical Reading section?</p>
<p>Amazon</a> Link</p>
<p>I haven’t, sorry, but maybe these reviews will help
[Amazon.com:</a> SAT Prep Black Book: The Most Effective SAT Strategies Ever Published eBook: Mike Barrett: Kindle Store](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BS1FT9M]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BS1FT9M)</p>
<p>I have it. I read a few pages and hated it; I found the free online guides here on CC much better than the Black Book.</p>
<p>dilina: I did indeed read the Amazon reviews, but I was thinking that CC is the place where good to excellent review books would have more followers or garner more attention.</p>
<p>Lipp7260: Thanks! By “free online guides”, are you referring specifically just to Xiggi and Silverturtle’s guides, or any others in particular? And I would be grateful if you could elaborate on why you didn’t find the book to your liking, as it would help me form more of a decision as to whether or not to get it.</p>
<p>It’s actually pretty good. I think the Xiggi and Silverturtle stuff is more or less its equal, though.</p>
<p>For anyone still curious and those that may ask the same question about this book in the future:</p>
<p>The Black Book is written by Mike Barrett, the same person who wrote the old Grammatix SAT Study Guide (a.k.a. The Complete SAT and PSAT Strategy Guide).</p>
<p>If one were to compare the table of contents of each book to each other, one would find that the new Black Book has almost the same content as the old Grammatix Guide, albeit under somewhat distinct categories. </p>
<p>This is further confirmed by the Amazon preview (found in the Amazon link in my original post) made available for the Black Book. With some inspection, it is clearly evident that important strategies, entire paragraphs, and probably even entire pages (if one were to be able to see the entire book) are taken directly from the Grammatix Guide with few, if any, revisions.</p>
<p>Therefore, I recommend just using the Grammatix Guide, which has over the years received fairly good reviews by members of CC, especially for its tips and strategies in Critical Reading. </p>
<p>You can find the Grammatix Guide through post #5 on this CC thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/734459-where-heck-grammatix-guide.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/734459-where-heck-grammatix-guide.html</a></p>
<p>(correct about the Black Book being just an updated Grammatix. The updates are good, though, and the Black Book is superior. If you can get the Grammatix cheaper, then by all means do so, but the Black Book is an upgrade, imo)</p>
<p>As an non-native english speaker, I was having a hard time with CR. This book really helped me to understand how the right answers are written.
Mike Barrett says that all questions are “line reference” ones, and you have to find an answer choice that restates the same thing on the passage.</p>
<p>According to Mike Barrett, you don’t have to learn any math formula to score 800 on the math section. All the formulae you need are printed on the test-booklet.</p>
<p>Black Book’s grammar section and sparknotes’ grammar are alike. They both say only a few grammar rules are tested on this section.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I highly recommend Black Book.</p>
<p>DS felt big blue book was best</p>
<p>The book is filled with vague info and frankly wrong info (such as not studying vocab and not guessing) two techniques proven to be wrong, and it is simply a recycling of Mike’s previous book Grammatix which is free on the Internet.<br>
The author is a complete nobody in the industry and does not even have a physical address on his “supposed” well-known test prep company. I would pass on this one and get a book written by a real SAT expert!</p>
<p>No… This book is true genius. Mike Barrett seems to be one of the few tutors who know what they are doing.</p>
<p>Out of the five books I read for the SAT, this was the most helpful and the one I spent the most time on. He’s the only teacher I’ve met that takes a humanized approach to the questions, and I find that his informal ways work better than any formal ways the College Board or Princeton Review takes.</p>
<p>He really opened my eyes on the CR section especially. He shows you how you can get all the answers from the passage itself.</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend this as a first choice.</p>
I don’t know what everyone is talking about… this book is great. It really does crack the code of the SAT.
The Black Book and Erica Meltzer’s book are the two best mainstream resources for CR, imo. I don’t agree with everything they include, but a lot of it is extremely helpful. The latter is a bit of a slog, though–a dry read, to say the least.
^I agree with the first part of your post. I didn’t find the Critical Reader dry though; it just provided helpful info for every type of question.
Can anyone give their thoughts on the Black Book’s math section? I am leaning towards purchasing this book, but I am already consistently scoring extremely well on Writing (thanks Erica Meltzer), so I am only in need of quality Math & CR Books. Thank you!