I’m going to be taking the SAT in October. I saw that Kaplan and Princeton Review offer practice SAT in real conditions. Has anyone done this? Are they close to what the real test is? I’m hoping this will really help my preparation. Thanks in advance
Yes both of my kids did it several times (Princeton). In fact that was pretty much the extent of their preparation. I think that’s as close as your going to get to the real thing. I recommend it. At the very least it can’t hurt. Surprisingly there was no high pressure sales and you get a full report of your results.
@ClaremontMom Thank you very much for the information. How long did it take for them to give you the results? Also. do you have any experience with the Kaplan practice tests? The princeton review test is 45min away but the kaplan test is 10min
I think a 2 or 3 weeks. I don’t really remember. Sorry, no experience with Kaplan.
Their practice tests aren’t nearly as good as real CB tests, unfortunately.
Not worth your time. Why? See @marvin100 ’s post above
Interesting…I never asked my kids what they thought…I wonder if they would say the same thing.
I guess the value I saw in it was that it gave you real testing conditions instead of being easily distracted at home…and feedback. Never asked my kids if the exams were anything like the real ones.
Well, FWIW, they did well on the actual exams…but maybe they would have done just as good without the practice…we’ll never know.
My D took one and the score is ready in 1 week. They schedule both the mock test and the score review in 2 consecutive Saturdays. The questions and the scores are similar to their prep book. The main purposes of these mock tests are for the student to experience the test center setting and for those company to sell their prep classes. I think they intentionally make it slightly more difficult so they can convince you to take the class. They also offer it online but you don’t get the test center experience. My D told her tutoring students to take the Kaplan online practice test and both said it is more difficult than those on prep books.
I just took the test. I agree with @ClaremontMom as I saw the most value being in the real test conditions. The test however was not accurate. There was some really easy math sections but really strange writing sections. The identifying sentence errors was almost all idioms.
I also think PRs is harder. My D does better on the tests in the book than she did on PRs.
@billcsho , did your D do Kaplan or PR? PR didn’t mention a review session, but they also get our e-mail wrong.
Yes, PR is harder and Kaplan is easier. I forgot which free practice test she took. It was one of the two. I am leaning towards Kaplan as they always do a review session the week after.
Just got Sat results back. I scored a 1500 on the kaplan practice test (LOL) and got a 1950 on the actual one. I thought I was going to score in the 2000s (upset but am accepting what I got)