What books to buy to study for any test!

<p>This is what I wanted to recommend buying for studying for the SAT, Subject Tests, PSAT, and AP exams. If you have additional comments or contributions, please comment below!</p>

<p>SAT
Collegeboard
Princeton Review
Barron’s Flash Cards</p>

<p>SAT Subject Test
Collegeboard
Barron’s</p>

<p>PSAT
Mostly the ones that came with Princeton Review SAT
Also, I used old Barron’s and whichever ones had the most practice tests (like McGraw Hill)</p>

<p>A.P. Exams (When available for each A.P. Exam)
Princeton Review
McGraw Hill
Barron’s</p>

<p>I did not use Kaplan because my local library offered practice tests sponsored by Kaplan.
I used Sparknotes for Subject Tests and A.P. Tests as a reference, but did not buy the books.</p>

<p>The SAT Subject Test book sucks because there’s only one test for each topic, so if you only care about USH you’re buying a book to use like 5% of it. So just sit at the book store and take it there.</p>

<p>Princeton Review for APs, Collegeboard for SATs</p>

<p>SAT I - I bought three books.
CB Blue Book (required)
Gruber’s (Math)
Barron’s SAT 2400 (didn’t really use it, eh)</p>

<p>ACT
ACT 36 (didn’t really use that either, decided not to retake a 33 after disillusionment with the test)</p>

<p>SAT IIs
Barron’s for Math II
Didn’t study for any of the others; Rollover your studying from AP tests!</p>

<p>APs
Princeton Review is the only thing I’ve ever used.</p>

<p>What does everyone recommend for SAT Chemistry? I plan on mostly just using Barron’s, but i’ve heard that PR is good, too.</p>

<p>^PR is not very comprehensive. I recommend Barrons and practicing with tests here: <a href=“https://sites.google.com/a/hba.net/mhu/released-tests[/url]”>https://sites.google.com/a/hba.net/mhu/released-tests&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>@thesmiter
so is Barrons 2400 not useful? I’m curious because I think a book that doesn’t cater to the ~1500 crowd might be beneficial to some of my friends.</p>

<p>@blankk: No, I don’t think so. I leafed through a few pages and frankly, at that high of level where you’re aiming for the high scores (like I was), books will tell you little more than what you already know instinctively. When you’re heading for the 2400, your goal is NOT to make dumb mistakes, not to use tips to boost your score. If you want that 2400, you should be testing/retesting/correcting answers regularly. Gotta be on your A-game to get that 2400 single sitting.</p>

<p>SAT: BB and Barron’s 2400</p>

<p>I disagree with thesmiter; I found the tips in the Barron’s 2400 book pretty helpful. Granted, practice tests alone will take you most of the way if you’re already a high scorer, but if you want ANY content review whatsoever (and I think most people want to review at least one thing), it’s really nice because you don’t feel like you’re drowning in advice or little details you already know. Plus the vocab lists in the back are GREAT; I had at least six words on the June SAT’s sentence completion questions that I’d studied from that list–and there were probably even more words that I just didn’t take note of, ones I already knew and thus didn’t study.</p>

<p>Subject Tests: I just studied for the AP exams and then used Sparknotes and PR practice tests. 800 / 800 / 750.</p>

<p>PSAT: NOT McGraw Hill, whatever you do. The content is fine, but the practice tests are so off from the actual test that it’s pathetic.</p>

<p>APs: See <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13960974-post1237.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13960974-post1237.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

<p>These are great recommendations~!! I really like Barron’s flashcards. They helped a lot!</p>

<p>@satcrammers yeah right I read those flash cards on my first SAT and none came out however the Barron’s 3500 list was beautiful there was almost no word I didn’t know on the real exam.</p>

<p>Thanks, SATcrammers! I’m glad I was able to help :)</p>

<p>So for vocabulary, what does everybody prefer? Have any of you used Barron’s hot words for the sats or grubers sat word master?</p>

<p>I’m pretty reluctant to buy anything unless it provides something unique. There’s a lot of great stuff online for free.</p>

<p>SAT-
John Chung’s SAT Math is quite nice. It’s not as polished as a book a from Barron’s. The content is great. The questions in the test are actually somewhat harder than the SAT. It’s not well suited to someone who is bad at math. It’s more for someone who wants to go from a 650 to 750-800. </p>

<p>Flashcards are the way to go for vocabulary. You can get 5k free cards from the shared public decks section of the (also free) flashcard program called Anki. “5000 Collegiate Words (SAT Vocabulary) - English” is a good deck. I haven’t looked at Barron’s cards but I suspect these are as good or better.</p>

<p>SAT Subject Tests:
SparkNotes is just so good that an otherwise great solid probably doesn’t need anything else. There’s 3 free full practice tests for Bio, Chem and Math II. 5 free full tests for US History. Mini textbooks accompany each of the tests so that you can quickly review if you get the wrong answers.</p>

<p>AP US History.
This ([Top</a> 10 AP US History Study Guides](<a href=“http://ushistorytest.com/top-10-ap-us-history-study-guides/]Top”>http://ushistorytest.com/top-10-ap-us-history-study-guides/)) is a really good review of all the study guides on the market.</p>

<p>The college board provides free DBQs from every test over the last 10ish years on their site.</p>