<p>I'm an international student (from Australia) and I am planning to apply to some schools like deerfield etc. for entry into 2011. I am looking to buy a couple of SSAT/ISEE prep books and I was wondering which ones helped you? A couple of books that looked good were the Petersons Master the SSAT & ISEE 2010 and the Kaplan SSAT & ISEE 2010: For Private and Independent School Admissions. Has anyone used these books? Did you find them useful? Did they help? Did anyone use books different too these? THANKS HEAPS!</p>
<p>Buy Princeton Review 
or Kaplan :)</p>
<p>I didn’t use them but those are highly recommended by many people</p>
<p>Princeton Review + The Official Guide</p>
<p>That’s what I was told. </p>
<p>Good luck with your app!</p>
<p>I used Princeton Review.
It really helped me out and wasn’t as boring as you’d expect.
They actually write part of it to be amusing.</p>
<p>
Contrary to what the actual SSAT is like. Two cups of coffee could barely keep me awake.</p>
<p>I got two (Princeton Review and Kaplan).
Princeton Review was my favorite by a long shot. It definitely gives a LOT of help on the essays, while Kaplan only touches on it. Also, I thought it was more thorough.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about the Peterson’s one, sorry! I never heard of it.</p>
<p>thanks
does anyone know of any other good books?</p>
<p>Peterson’s wasn’t anything like the actual test…at least in my opinion and experience.</p>
<p>This year, ISEE came out with What to Expect guides accompanied by a sample test that are FREE online at [url=<a href=“http://www.erblearn.org/parents/admissions/isee]ERB”>http://www.erblearn.org/parents/admissions/isee]ERB</a> :: ISEE: Grades 5 - 12<a href=“scroll%20down%20to%20%22ISEE%20Preparation%20Materials%22%20for%20the%20link%20to%20the%20materials”>/url</a>. I hope this helps!</p>
<p>barrons definitely
it is the hardest… so you if you want to be prepared
get princeton review- good tips
barrons- difficulty level
SSAT official guide- lots of practice tests</p>
<p>My advice is to take as many practice tests as you can and make you you learn from what you did wrong. Work through the book you choose (I did Princeton Review and Kaplan), and it would be helpful to memorize as many words as you can. I memorized all the words in the Princeton review book and took Latin, which was pretty helpful. The books have some good tips as well, including jotting down notes while reading passages, and stringing a sentence in analogies (gill:fish::lung:___ –> gills help fish breathe, lungs help ___ breathe).</p>
<p>I got a 96% doing the bare minimum and totally forgetting about the SSAT’s until the week before. Just commit to a session a week, memorizing a couple words a day, and you’ll do totally fine! :)</p>
<p>Here’s a big word of caution about the prep books for this year’s math ISEE. The ISEE changed somewhat this year, particularly in the math section. My son studied from the Barron’s book by taking those practice tests and the downloaded test from the ISEE site. He didn’t come close to finishing the math sections in the allotted time on those practice tests. Yet, he had no problem on the real thing and scored extremely well. When he did the practice SSAT tests from those books, he did not have the same difficulty, though.</p>
<p>There are some official guides which you can get here: [ERB</a> :: ISEE: Grades 5 - 12](<a href=“http://www.erbtest.org/parents/admissions/isee#isee-student-guide]ERB”>http://www.erbtest.org/parents/admissions/isee#isee-student-guide)</p>
<p>However I also recommend that you purchase some past exams to practice with. These are either available from books or again you can purchase them online. This site seems to offer them: [ISEE</a> Prep Guide](<a href=“http://www.iseeprep.org%5DISEE”>http://www.iseeprep.org)</p>
<p>I bought the Princeton Review one and a few vocabulary books (Word Smart 2 and 1,000 words every freshman should now)… I still got a 54% :(</p>
<p>use Princeton Review Cracking the SSAT or Barron’s. A little advise dont buy Kaplan its a waste of money the whole formating is off and it will just screew you up on the test, pretty much every Kaplan study guide is garbage there not very good books. And do not buy the offical guide as a study guide, you could buy it for the practise tests but do not buy it if your looking for a study guide its terrible more than half the book is on about how to apply to a private school.</p>
<p>Princeton for English</p>
<p>Kaplan for Math (I strongly disagree with Billie–the Kaplan was the ONLY book that explained the math problems/answers and gave invaluable suggestions for how to approach certain problems.</p>
<p>The book from the SSAT people for practice tests at the end</p>
<p>yeah, kaplan explained a lot, which was nice. their practice tests are waaaay too easy though, so don’t use them as an accurate indicator.</p>
<p>i got princeton and kaplan, and i liked princeton’s vocab section, and all of kaplan’s explanations (i found that princeton’s explanations were less thorough).
best of luck!</p>
<p>Hey Dive what date did you take the SSAT? I am asking because i took it on march 10th and i read cover to cover of the Princeton Review Cracking the SSAT and there wasnt a single word from the hit word parad or the back for more on the actual SSAT. (mind you it was a good book and it helped me alot) I ended up getting like 80 percentile on the vocab but there was not a single word from any of the books that i used on the test.</p>
<p>i took it in december.
i only found 1 word from their hit parade, but their list of roots and prefixes helped a lot!</p>
<p>i got 89th percentile in verbal, i think… i messed up some analogies, so :)</p>
<p>Yeah the prefixes are what saved me 
I found the analogies on the actual test to be much easier than the ones in the book though. ( mind you i took the ssat in my grade 11 year aka fifth form) so i was pretty easy for me. I have to take the ACT in june now becuase i am going to a boarding school for only one year ( my last year sixth form) and i want to apply to early admissions to college.</p>