<p>I am really doubting the legitimacy of practice tests published in books... the first test I took was on a CD in a book made by a company called "Thompsons/Petersons" or something like that... just now, I took half of one of the tests in SAT for Dummies</p>
<p>On the first test, in like the 2 or 3 writing sections or however many it was, I got a 780. After taking ONE section of writing in the Dummies book, I got almost a third of the questions wrong!!!</p>
<p>Some factors include my recent test being taken at 7:00PM at night, after going to school for 7 hours, but I got enough sleep last night and I dont feel tired... this is probably a slight factor, but I can't imagine it having such a RIDICULOUS effect.</p>
<p>This has probably been discussed before, but which tests are usually the most reliable? Has anyone else ever had such a discrepancy between tests? Does anyone know if either of these two publishers is good, or bad?</p>
<p>Definitely the College Board's book as billyum suggests. Frankly, PR tests are not great. I should know, I used to write questions for them and I was always frustrated with their shoddy quality control. Kaplan tests are worse and full of typos, and I've noticed that Sparknotes are the least like the real test I've seen yet. Use real tests. Even old real SAT are great for practicing the material that hasn't changed.</p>
<p>Be wary of test and practice material on CDs...you don't take the real SAT on CD, so practice tests on CD aren't a good indicator usually. (Now when you decide to go to grad school and take the GRE, then you should do computer based practice.)</p>
<p>I posted this a while back regarding Kaplan:</p>
<p>I've received very bad impressions from Kaplan.</p>
<p>I took a free practice testing of the New SAT last summer. They totally messed up the scoring:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only 1 person graded the essay, not 2. So my grade for the essay was a 6/12.</li>
<li>Some of their "correct" answers on their answer key were obviously incorrect. Think "Tommy was eat pizza." errors.</li>
<li>So as expected, my score was atrocious.</li>
</ul>
<p>Then they come back and tell you that your score sucked so much that you should pay them to teach you.</p>
<ul>
<li>Also, I find their practice tests to be easier than the actual test.. Then when you do badly on the real test, they offer you to go back and learn some more.</li>
</ul>
<p>Horrible.</p>
<p>If you want to get a feel for the Collegeboard tests, go take the one on their website.</p>
<p>I'm using collegeboard's official guide. I don't trust pr. at all. I think they're borderline the worst. Barrons' is good if you want to be an expert in miniscule details, but unless you're doing the sat2 math2c, don't use barrons'. PR distorts the questions to fit their strategies (like joe bloggs, poe, etc.), so a lot of times the questions aren't like pr questions.</p>