<p>I feel like I should just say thank you. I hadn’t posted here before, but had read a lot of your advice (and decided to take it). Your advice worked a miracle on my score, improving from a 1950 on my first BB test to a 2300 on my May SAT. So yeah, thnx a bunch. This advice doesn’t just work for SATs, it works for all standardized tests.</p>
<p>Thanks so much Xiggi! You’re methods are amazing and your price is definitely right :)</p>
<p>A few thoughts on the SAT tutoring business:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The people who receive tutoring have motivated parents, but perhaps don’t represent the most motivated class of students. The people who want to get the best SAT scores are those who are trying to raise themselves out of poverty. These students don’t have parents with connections or tons of money to drop on SAT tutors.</p></li>
<li><p>SAT tutors charge exorbitant rates for their services. I know you put a lot of time into staying on top of the SAT and developing strategies, but really, do you truly intend to give the more affluent students an advantage over those who want it even more? By selling your services, all you are doing is allowing some students to get a better score with less work while the rest of us are forced to spend grueling hours finding our own patterns and then have to practice.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I know Godot said the patterns were his intellectual property, but couldn’t some of the tutors who hang around on these forums write a reasonably priced book that would contain some of the more helpful strategies? By reasonably priced I mean no more than 20 dollars. Even the 50 dollars for Grammatrix is extrordinarily high for those of us who are struggling to keep food in the house. I understand you all spend enormous amounts of time developing these patterns, but all you are doing is allowing some students to have a horribly unfair advantage over the rest of us and those students aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or the most motivated. The playing field is uneven enough as it is with the networks that some parents have, but all the SAT tutoring business does just makes things worse. You are hurting the chances of admission for those of us who are capable of changing the world and therefore hurting the future of your country. It may seem a bit strong, but in truth, the people who went to the best universities get the best jobs, and when it comes to creating new things and solving problems, it is imperative that those people are the “cream of the crop” not just the people who have parents who are capable of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on test prep every month. The fact is: SATs are higher stakes than any adult can ever realize. SAT scores will make or break us and by having tutors meddling in the process, it makes the SAT even more unfair of a test.</p>
<p>Xiggi, again thanks so much for the help. Any quality free advice is so wonderful. I’m so excited and ready to try your processes. I really hope you come through on your promised posts. I don’t think you realize how much your advice means to me and other lower class prospective college students. Any and all of your future posts will be very much appreciated by me and so many others. Thanks so much for spending your valuable time to coach a bunch of high school students and I hope others will take the initiative and start making the SATs a fair opportunity for everyone; after all, that’s what they were meant to do in the first place.</p>
<p>PlayingWithMyDog: I can feel your intensity and passion in your post and to an extent, agree that high-priced tutors are appealing to a wealthier audience. However, some of your generalizations are strident and fundamentally inaccurate. There are thousands of kids from “wealthy” families who work incredibly hard, struggle in the same overly competitive system and are highly motivated to get the best education possible and carry that ethic into the world at large. Do you think that most kids who are economically advantaged have no stake in change? If that were the case, Obama wouldn’t be President today.</p>
<p>What we CAN agree on is that Xiggi is a treasure to ALL of us with access to a computer and this website. Query: Isn’t THAT an advantage, too?</p>
<p>My viewpoint is very clear on this. Every year anxious parents spend thousands of dollars on coaching to help aspiring students improve their SAT scores. However I question the efficacy of these test-preparation courses and their promises of big score gains. </p>
<p>Overall this sums my position as well. I started Snapwiz with a firm belief that costly SAT coaching or test prep is mostly not worth the money. If you are a parent and want your son or daughter to attend a good college, a cost effective and value for money (Free!) SAT prep like ours is the way to go. I personally believe that most admission tests, SAT, GMAT, GRE, etc. can be gamed and all you need is a lot of targeted practice. Nothing more!</p>
<p>My suggestion: Save your money for the college tuition and go for cheaper options for SAT.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>When my son practices with the older 10 Real SATs, should he take the entire SAT test (all subtests including Analogies and Quantitative Comparison sections) or just take those subtests that are replicated on the New SAT? </p>
<p>I also have older versions of TPR and Kaplan practice tests. Is it worth his taking those for practice as well?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Q: When my son practices with the older 10 Real SATs, should he take the entire SAT test (all subtests including Analogies and Quantitative Comparison sections) or just take those subtests that are replicated on the New SAT?</p>
<p>A: There is no need to take the entire SAT test at once. It is best to ignore sections that are no longer tested. </p>
<p>Q: I also have older versions of TPR and Kaplan practice tests. Is it worth his taking those for practice as well?</p>
<p>A: Do not waste time practicing with TPR or Kaplan tests – recent or old.</p>
<p>xiggi what do you recommend for the CR section? Do you think it is best for one to read the passage, or should you just go to the questions.
and how do you suggest i improve my writing score? thanks!</p>
<p>I’ll be adding a few additional sections in the next future that should address your precise questions. </p>
<p>In general terms, it’s almost impossible to recommend one method. In reality, considering the short amount of time it takes to read the passages, it should not make much difference. The real difference comes from the the faculty of students to concentrate for a short period of time. There are students who do really well by reading the entire text and answering the questions later. Others prefer to read the questions first and start a “hunting” process by following the line references. </p>
<p>My theory is that students should try both methods (or even a hybrid) and uncover which method works the best for THEM. Regardless of the method used, it is more important to use the proper techniques to eliminate the wrong answers, and realize that the answer is ALWAYS within the four corners of the document.</p>
<p>thank you very much!</p>
<p>mqt1279: I’m really sorry if I offended anyone. I didn’t mean that affluent students were lazy, what I meant was that they are able to bypass the steps of developing strategies because they can afford to “buy” them when they hire an SAT tutor. I meant that they didn’t have to work as hard on the SAT and could therefore spend more time on other things like community service and leadership.</p>
<p>Some of the most motivated student I know are extremely wealthy and I didn’t mean to imply that being wealthy = being lazy. That stereotype is definitely out of date. I do, however think there are definitely some students who are not motivated, as there are with any level of income, and that those students are able to get high SAT scores because their parents can pay for them. I’ve personally seen it happen many times over.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean for my statements to be generalizations, I just wish that wealthy students were required to spend just as much time as everyone else to get a high SAT score. Everyone who posted here pretty much agreed that having a good tutor allows a student to bypass much of the time-consuming “strategizing phase” of studying for the SAT.</p>
<p>An0maly wrote: “The new blue book should be referred to as BB2”</p>
<p>Please, no! Avoid abbreviations. It gets very confusing to see BB, TPR, RR, etc. Best to take the extra few seconds and write out the complete words.</p>
<p>Where am I going to find explanations for the answers? It seems as if I have the first edition of the book and definitely can’t pay for any service.</p>
<p>Islander,
The one recommended on THIS thread for 3-4 years has been:</p>
<ul>
<li>Test Masters Official Complete Solutions to the Offical Study Guide for the New SAT [Amazon.com:</a> Complete Solutions to the College Board’s Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT (Test Masters Books): Test Masters Staff: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Solutions-College-Boards-Official/dp/0976744805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247257716&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Solutions-College-Boards-Official/dp/0976744805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247257716&sr=8-1)</li>
</ul>
<p>since Amazon is out of stock, and the Test Masters site has it for $15 + $9 shipping <a href=“http://student.testmasters.com/estore/catalog.asp[/url]”>http://student.testmasters.com/estore/catalog.asp</a>
but won’t ship to CA, I had to look into an alternative. </p>
<p>A thread a few days ago here summarizes other options:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/743656-choosing-effective-book-explanation-bb.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/743656-choosing-effective-book-explanation-bb.html</a></p>
<p>Pasting from there:</p>
<p>-Ultimate SAT Supplement Klass Tutoring by Erik Klass, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-SAT-Supplement-Tutoring-solutions/dp/1439215049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247258635&sr=8-1[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-SAT-Supplement-Tutoring-solutions/dp/1439215049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247258635&sr=8-1</a>
-Official SAT Study Guide Solutions Manual by Van Tsai,
-Maximum SAT by Peter Edwards, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-SAT-Second-Peter-Edwards/dp/141965800X/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247258936&sr=1-9[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-SAT-Second-Peter-Edwards/dp/141965800X/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247258936&sr=1-9</a> and
-Answers & Explanations by Peter Tanguay. </p>
<p>I chose the Klass publication. If you are not in CA, I recommend you buy the Test Masters since it has been a long time recommendation here.</p>
<p>I haven’t had a chance to use this, but it was posted recently. It’s gives solutions to the 8 tests, online and free: </p>
<p>[Preparing</a> For SAT Test](<a href=“http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/sat-test-prep.html]Preparing”>Preparing For SAT Test (solutions, examples))</p>
<p>thanks entomom…you just saved me $24 :)</p>
<p>I just called the College Board Store to ask about the differences between the first and second editions of the BB. I was told that the new book has 10 tests - 7 that are from the first edition plus 3 recent exams. So it seems the explanations are available for the 7 but I’m not sure how long it will take to find explanations for the 3 new exams. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Hmm…I wonder what dates the 3 recent exams are from. I’m going to call them now and find out.</p>
<p>Here’s how the conversation went:</p>
<p>Me: Do you know when the “3 new recent exams” were administered?
CB Rep: No, we do not know the dates they were administered.
Me: Any guesstimates? Like what exactly do you mean by “recent”? A year, 2 years???
CB Rep: [harshly] “Recent”
Me: Thanks</p>
<p>They won’t say. Damn.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading the past 21 pages and my eyes are swimming. Is there just a one-post summary of the basics – what books are better, what books aren’t worth it, and general strategies? I don’t want the whole history and philosophy of test prep, just the reader’s digest condensed version!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here is the compressed version of Xiggi’s advice (which is a great method of studying for and doing well on the SAT): <a href=“http://www.filedropper.com/xiggiadvice[/url]”>http://www.filedropper.com/xiggiadvice</a></p>
<p>The only book that is worth it imo is The College Board’s Official Study Guide, 2nd Edition. Here is a link to its Amazon page : [Amazon.com:</a> The Official SAT Study Guide, 2nd edition: The College Board: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-2nd/dp/0874478529]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-2nd/dp/0874478529)</p>