I’m on vacation right now and I brought both the Barron’s SAT book and The Official SAT Study Guide. My next and last SAT is a month from now, should I begin studying with the Barron’s or the Official SAT? Which one worked better for you?
I need to work mainly on critical reading and the essay.
Thanks!!
The Official Study Guide is much, much better. Barron’s is not very good, and many here would recommend eschewing it completely.
I would recommend the Barron’s book. It has far more strategy and practice than the Official SAT guide. I just got a copy and I’m impressed with what they came up with in so little time. You can get everything that is in the official guide on Khan Academy for free.
I would recommend both, but each for a different use.
The Official Study Guide: for its 10 real SAT tests. Every Saturday morning, do 1 SAT under testing conditions. After you finish one test, first try to re-solve incorrect questions. If you cannot answer them correctly, here the Barron’s book is useful. For example, if it was a math question, idenitfy the lesson/concept of the question you missed and study it from the Barron’s book. It’s very comprehensive and excellent when it comes to revising the math material and they, honestly, do a great job with the vocab lists and essay advice. (but for 17-19/19 vocab, direct hits is #1)
I would, however, avoid using Barron’s tests for practice. The critical reading is unrealistic and some questions are even truly subjective, which can NEVER be the case in the real SAT. They also test some writing concepts in a totally different way and even include some that never come on the real test. Math is harder than normal, but I believe this is a good aspect of their math sections. However, the blue book is poor when it comes to revision and studying, but excellent as a source of tests, of course.
If you want to do your best on critical reading, get Erica’s book “The Critical Reader” and study lessons you are weak at. (You know lessons you’re weak at after analyzing tests you solve from the blue book.) Her book also has a list of relevant blue book questions at the end of each chapter to guide your studying more effectively. I personally never used those lists, but they’re quite resourceful from what I heard. I’ll be using them to prep for January.
The Critical Reader is good for analyzing how to approach the sections. But for actual practice, stick with the official study guide. Practicing with Barron’s will make you better at answering the kinds of questions that are written by Barron’s. Practicing with the Official Study Guide will make you better at answering the kinds of questions written by the College Board. Your call…
I would say Official Guide, because I think there’s nothing more useful than doing practice tests, seeing areas you need to improve on, studying the answers and figuring out why they’re right. I find all the stuff about strategy a bit too theoretical to actually help with answering the questions.