you know what is driving me crazy? *rant*

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>when sat practice books are incorrect or have false answers. if a company is selling a product that they claim to be beneficial for your sat score, they should at least CHECK that their answer choices, answers and wordings are correct. i'm seriously about to send a letter of complaint to McGraw-Hill because this is about the tenth time I have found some sort of error in their practice tests. </p>

<p>and i am not permitted to have a signature so i will just add this as a disclaimer: sorry for sounding hypocritical because of my own poor grammar but i have bad grammar when it comes to anything besides academic purposes. :'(</p>

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<p>You must know there is an easy solution to your problem. A good start is to ignore all the misguided “advice” that include using tests that are not created by ETS and The College Board. Those tests range from worthless to totally horrendous. All of them! </p>

<p>There are no valid reasons to ever use any of the synthetic tests. And no real reasons to believe the companies that produce them have any intention to correct the mistakes. This was the case ten years ago and will be the same in ten years.</p>

3

<p>I think xiggi is being a bit harsh in his/her absolute condemnation of “all of them.” I agree that most of the “secret insider lowdown”-style of advice is nonsense, but some test prep materials do provide practice that is close enough to the real thing to be worth doing. I’ve found Princeton Review, Kaplan, Rocket Review and Peterson to be reasonable simulations of SAT verbal questions. I do have quibbles with some of them, but if practice is what you are looking for, they aren’t bad.</p>

<p>I do agree that many of the other materials on the market are worthless and some are even pernicious. Still, you should congratulate yourself for the fact that your own skills have developed to the point that you can detect the errors you encounter.</p>

4

<p>Not all test prep books are bad, but I’ve seen preparation books from Kaplan, etc. that are full of errors. It’s a shame that they are still selling them without adequately editing their material.</p>

5

<p>Your points are well taken. A company that sets itself up as an authority has a definite responsibility to make sure its materials are accurate. If publishers are aware of errors, they should be corrected.</p>

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<p>I absolutely agree with xiggi on ignoring every single practice test that was not created by the collegeboard/ets. The last I counted there are about 40 official tests released by Collegeboard, and this is more than enough to prepare for the SAT. Perhaps the only thing worthwhile salvaging from the test prep books might be the concept review and strategies, but when it comes to taking practice tests, just stick with the official tests. The reason few people espouse this approach is because no money can be made from this simple advice. </p>

<p>The official questions written by ETS for SAT are very well written, I have not once encountered an error/ambiguity in official tests. It is their job to thoroughly test each question for accuracy and ambiguity, this is precisely why the experimental section exists. In addition, ETS has a very specific style and format, and it is very important to get used to that and internalize the structure. The only way to do so is to practice with official tests. </p>

<p>Now, I am not suggesting that collegeboard/ets are perfect, they have their own financial incentives. They make plenty of money by selling the Official Guide($20) and Online SAT Course($70) to schools and individuals. I would much rather see them be truly “non-profit”, and make all the 40 practice tests widely accessible to all students, including the SAT Question and Answer service. I personally think that an organization that administers a specific test should not be allowed to profit by selling the test prep material, this is a direct conflict of interest. But that is a discussion for another day.</p>

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<p>thank you! today, i have completely switched to the blue book and pretty much got rid of all my other ones. i got a 2200 today, when all my other scores in other books were in the 1900’s so i’m not sure whether the blue book is easier, just better in general or i was just extremely lucky today.</p>

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<p>40?!?!?!?</p>

<p>I have the blue book, which has 10.
The online course is too expensive, so there goes 6.
I know of approximately, say, 4 tests CB releases online?
Now, where are the other 20? In Q&A? b/c those aren’t technically released…</p>

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<p>Yeah, so what if there’s some mistakes. Better practice for you if you prove it wrong. My princton review ACT book has no mistakes </p>

<p>Sent from my Desire HD using CC</p>

10

<p>How do you know there are no mistakes in your Princeton Review book? </p>

<p>The main negative issue with synthetic tests is not the occasional mistake but the lack of reference of the material tested. Despite the claims by some, there are NO benefits in working with tests that borrow material from higher level tests such as the GMAT. You want to practice with the tests that have the correct difficulty and HAVE been tested and calibrated by the ETS experts. </p>

<p>It does not get any easier than that!</p>

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<p>Because I’ve worked through the book, and on the questions I missed, I read in the back on why I got it wrong, and it makes perfect sense why that certain answer was right. It’s usually a careless mistake on my part </p>

<p>Sent from my Desire HD using CC</p>

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<p>Ever thought that that your supposedly correct answer could matche a questions that the PR writers also missed? Two wrongs contributing to one right? </p>

<p>While it is usually easier to catch a blatant mistake in the math sections, it is hardly the case for the remaining questions.</p>

<p>If all the wrong answers, the mistakes, the ambiguous questions and answers had been listed on CC, it might have contributed to the longest thread ever. </p>

<p>But everyone is entitled to his or her erroneous opinion.</p>

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<p>Lol erroneous opinion? If it’s his or her OPINION, then in his or her mind, it is justified as being correct. on the other hand, you seem perplexed by the double entendre.</p>

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<p>^ I agree that calling an opinion erroneous is the wrong word
choice for a forum. People sometimes need to be told they are objectively wrong, but in matters of this significance, it seems arbitrarily hostile indicative of a lack of the author’s feelings towards other members of humanity or even possibly a bad mood (the less likely but possible choices are also arrogance/ego and believed indignance, among others, but then it wouldn’t be arbitrary).</p>

<p>In a forum, not everyone is as informed, so I can see xiggi’s desire for the truth to be known with the knowledge he has accumulated and the time he/she has taken to make it known (in xiggi’s mind), but it’s usually better to win arguments with the truth through those facts and accumulated knowledge than to get personal. </p>

<p>Xiggi, your argument was the most convincing, but it lost credibility when it appeared like your motives for posting delineated from helping the forum users to being right for yourself and making others erroneous. In that sense, knowledge of a possible alternative motive for your posting makes your posts less solid because it makes them appear to be skewed for that motive. It won’t change what is right or wrong, but it can turn people against truth that might be in your posts and you-- I’m sure that’s of little importance to you though since this is a forum. For me though, people are people- wrong as they often are.</p>

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<p>Yes, I’m not saying all books are 100% correct. My OPINION is that my pr ACT book has no mistakes. Now, that may or may not be true. However, if you have found mistakes in yours, then that’s great. When these mistakes happen, it shouldn’t totally obliterate your score. If there were say 4 mistakes on an SAT test, your score would differ maybe 40-80 points-you can just add this back to compensate yourself.</p>

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<p>The SAT CR sections test (some of) one’s close reading skills. Anything that exercises those skills is beneficial. Thus, reading Time magazine or The Economist can improve the basic skills necessary to do well on the SAT, even though they do not look like an SAT and are not produced by the College Board. The absolute, doctrinaire insistence that the only material to use for SAT prep must come from the College Board seems to be the result of constricted thinking about the test. </p>

<p>Of course, if one wants to evaluate their improvement and performance on the test, they would be best served to use actual tests. But there is more to preparing for the SAT than evaluating performance. One must learn material and acquire and practice skills as well. The College Board produces good materials for these purposes, but not the ONLY materials, and not always and in all cases the BEST materials for all students.</p>

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<p>Haha, it seems that interjecting a bit of humor and sarcasm did not go well. Fwiw, everyone means everyone, and that includes me.</p>

<p>I’ll repeat that the issue is not one of scoring; it is one of practicing with relevant and calibrated test materials. One can use the multitude of books for tips and tricks. That is not an area where TCB shines. However, using the poorly crafted and poorly edited tests from PR, Kaplan, et al, is not recommended. Especially when there are more than enough released tests available.</p>

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<p>Here I list reasons why Collegeboard’s Practice Test should be used exclusively for evaluating performance during SAT preparation:</p>

<p>1) Questions closely adhere to the format and style of test writers and actual exam questions will be along the same lines.</p>

<p>2) The practice test scores have the highest accuracy because they have been tested on a large student population under actual test conditions. That is why a 2200 in an XYZ test prep book may not reflect your actual score.</p>

<p>3) The questions have been tested thoroughly for ambiguity and mistakes via the experimental section in an actual SAT test setting, something impossible for a test prep company to do. </p>

<p>4) It is important to get accustomed to the style and format of the test writers. They are very consistent and since most students have a finite amount of time, it is best spent on actual tests. </p>

<p>5) 60 to 70% of the test(at least in the Math portion) adheres closely to past content and students will have an edge if they have practiced on variations of similar questions from the past. </p>

<p>Kyrix asked me about the source of official SAT questions. Here is the list:</p>

<p>1) 11 Tests in the Official SAT Study Guide 2nd Edition(BB2)[$20]</p>

<p>2) 10 Tests in the Online SAT Course: Free access in few states, and apparently many schools can provide access to students for free. Ask your counselor. Otherwise cost is steep $70. </p>

<p>3) 4 Official Practice Tests release by Collegeboard[Free]. Here is the link: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1277787-links-additional-official-sat-practice-tests-collegeboard.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1277787-links-additional-official-sat-practice-tests-collegeboard.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>4) 4 Official Practice Tests following the old format released by Collegeboard[Free]. Just use these for practice problems and not for full length tests. They are listed in the above link as well. </p>

<p>5) 12 Practice Tests released as part of SAT QAS(2008 to 2012). The previous tests from prior years overlap with either the Official SAT study guide or the Official SAT Online course. These tests are floating on the internet, and Collegeboard supposedly frowns on students sharing these, but I have never understood their stance on not making these public. Are they scared to disclose the current content to a wider audience, or they plan on repeating these questions in those administrations where they don’t release the tests? Who knows.</p>

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<p>SATQuantum:</p>

<p>I see now that we are fundamentally in agreement. When it comes to evaluation of performance, one cannot beat the real test. Practice and learning subject matter are not the same as evaluation.</p>

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<p>sorry this is off topic but what is the experimental section? I always read about them but I still have no clue what they are. :(</p>