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Title: Master the NEW SAT, 2005/e w/out CD-ROM (Academic Test Preparation Series)
ISBN: 0768914744
Author:
Arco
Publicate Date: 2004-12-15
Publish: 2004-12-15
List Price: $25.63
Average Customer Rating: 2.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.95
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.40
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Don't buy it
I was one of those lucky individuals who got to take the SAT three times. My original test, a retest, and then the new test because my old scores were no longer any good (the perils of taking time off before applying to college). The first two times I didn't study at all, and I figured in the spirit of amending bad habits I'd study for the third go around. I bought this book in a local bookstore and started studying. I had my suspicions doing some of the exercises, but I continued on. A week before the test I sat down to do a full length practice test. I did a lot worse than I expected, and as I checked through my reading and writing answers I began to question the answers the book gave. The math section sealed it. Many of the answers they give are wrong, as are the explanations. It goes beyond simple typos. After discovering the errors in the math section, I revisited the verbal sections and asked my father (who is very good at grammar) about them. He agreed that many of the answers provided were wrong.
A week before the test I went out and got the official college board book. My results on the practice tests were much more in line with the scores I expected (and what I had gotten on the two previous official tests) and I didn't find any errors, whereas in this book the errors are often glaring. I also compared the set up of the tests and this book is off there as well. It has questions on material not on the real SAT and the lengths of the sections in the practice tests are different than what's on the real SAT.
The review material at the beginning of the book is fairly lengthy where other books just throw in a quick and dirty review, but considering the errors in the book I wouldn't feel comfortable trusting it. In my opinion the SAT is too high stakes to spend your time studying material that may be factually incorrect or irrelevant to the test.
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2: Gee Golly
I own the 2006 version of this, and if that sucked, I reckon this one will be worse.
Pros:
-In the reading/writing reviews, they provided a very useful list of commonly confused phrases, words, and usages.
-Five tests! Yay!
-I liked the paper it was printed on.
Cons:
-A good bit of mistakes.
-Many questions were worded funny and/or confusing, especially in the math section (my friends agree, so it's not just me).
-I'm not sure if it improved anything.
-About three quarters of their "strategies" are basically common sense.
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3: Don't buy it!
I bought this book because it was the only new SAT prep book available at the local bookstore and there were so many practice tests. I just took practice test 3 and THERE WERE SO MANY ERRORS..in the answer key, in the questions.. It isn't a surprise that ARCO's books aren't big hits like Princeton Review, Kaplan, Barron's, and Cliff's.
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4: 4 out of 5 stars
arco was the 2nd practice book that i've bought as my SAT prep book. i was satisfied with all of the sections except for some of the grammar parts in the writing section. otherwise, the math section really helped me bring my mark to 700 (i started out with 600) after i practiced all of the math questions. also, the critical reading passage sections are qiute similar to the ones found in the blue collegeboard book. the only problem is that i found some of the grammar questions to be more difficult than the collegeboard's.. nevertheless, they still helped prepare me for SAT.
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5: Mediocre at best
I bought this book for the practice exams for practice before I take the SAT in May. Before this, I have used the official College Board blue book, as well as the Barron's book, and this book falls short compared to those two. The math was atypical of the level of difficulty seen in the other two books (as well as that of the real test, if the reports from friends can be believed), and the writing section had a considerable amount of error that can only be attributed to the ignorance of the book's testwriter. In my opinion, this book is a thoroughly unreliable test resource (I have not chanced a peek at the instructory segment, however). Caveat emptor.
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