<p>Many people have told me that the Barrons, Princeton review, etc books are just a waste of time. They're nothing like the real SATs, and you won't merit or gain any skills for the real SATs by prepping for them. Since they can't use any of the real SAT questions, they come up with their own. But it's faulty because those test prep books aren't testing reasoning, which is the sole purpose of the SATs. Please tell me, based on experience with those kinds of test prep books, how much they really helped?</p>
<p>To some degree they are right. The collegeboard books are the best. NEVER EVER GET KAPLAN. kaplan=useless. I’ll play devil’s advocate here and say that the writing part is decent but everything else sucks. reading part is too easy and math has questions that never appear on tests… Princeton review I don’t really know, i haven’t used them for SAT’s. Barron’s is the best in my opinion out of all the test books excluding collegeboard. I think their reading part is most accurate with collegeboards. (there are some questions that won’t appear on the actual test though) writing part is pretty decent too except the best sentence part, they seem harder… a lot harder… Forgot what it’s called, but you know the first 11 questions in the writing section. So yeah… GET THE BLUE BOOK. and barron’s too for the side.</p>
<p>@sun6360</p>
<p>Since the blue book is the best for your time, after you finish reading it and doing the practice tests what other things can you do to improve your potential? Reread it to review its techniques?</p>
<p>@ misteranthony
I’m currently studying for the SAT’s too. Trust me, I’m no expert haha. But yes. I just bought the 10 Real SAT collegeboard book from the 1990’s for the reading passages. I’m also planning on reviewing my blue book, both first and second edition more thoroughly. I might even buy a new copy of the second edition. I will go through the reading passages more thoroughly by pointing out why a certain choice is the answer with evidence from the passage and such.</p>