<p>Does anyone have experience with either TestMasters or StudyWorks for SAT prep? My son has pretty much admitted that while self-studying would probably be best, he needs the discipline of a set schedule, with homework, etc. So the plan now is to take the PSAT in October, the ACT in December, the SAT in April or May, the ACT again in April, and then just see where he stands. For the ACT, S really has no option but to self-study because there are no test prep options in our part of the country. But thats okay, since he can select which, if any, ACT score to send. For the SAT, it probably makes sense to take a course. Ive heard too much bashing of PR and Kaplan, so Im now looking at TM or SW. They cost the same, and both have a 300 Point Guarantee, though as with most guarantees the details arent quite as generous. TestMasters will let you retake the course again for free if you dont improve 300 points, but the website doesnt explain how the improvement is measured. SW seems to have two guarantees. A full money-back guarantee if there is no improvement at all, and a pro-rata refund if a student doesnt improve by 300 points but it looks like this only applies to Seniors and is measured from the students Sophomore PSAT score. Odd. On the other hand, while its not part of any guarantee, SW allows students to re-take the course an unlimited amount of times for a $45 materials fee. </p>
<p>Any real-world testimonials or experiences would be very much appreciated.</p>
<p>I don't know about their classes, but I would give their book of answers to the Blue Book questions a low rating (the book was available on Amazon.com for a while, but was pulled out, probably because of trade name battles with another company in California).</p>
<p>I've always heard testmasters is a solid tutoring agency for the SAT, this is not only coming from college confidential forums, but a few of my friends have used it and been successful in gaining 100-200 point increases. However, in the end, I am totally against tutoring agencies like testmasters, princeton review, studyworks, and what not. Overall, they do not help students who are already scoring high and have potential to score much higher, but just need the extra grasp in "learning the test" and not making silly mistakes. I would say anyone who scored 1900+ on the new sat and had relatively similar breakdown of math verbal and writing scores shouldn't be wasting precious time and money on tutoring agencies, instead practice tests and solid review books should be more than sufficient. Furthermore, if you go for tutoring, definitely do one on one, the whole class thing boggles my mind in trying to teach 20 totally different students an SAT question. Try to choose someone who is a senior and did relatively well on their SATs, but knows exactly how to teach them (even if they didn't get a great score themselves). Eh, I know a posted a bunch of extraneous information, but I have some free time lol.</p>