SAT Learning books

[Edgewardb]

I am planning to buy a couple of SAT books to study with. Since with all the different Brands, do they provide the same info for all grade levels?

 

[yankeesfan]

Pick up a grammar book while you're at it.

 

[Edgewardb]

I have spell check with my Mozilla.

Sorry I am on a budget right now.

 

[StevenYoo]

the book published by the College Board is the best one

 

[us3rnotfound]

It may be too late.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

When are you planning to take it, and are you a junior or senior? You might also want to consider taking a course. That's what I'm doing now in preparation for the November test. The book was useful for practice tests, but it wasn't very good at teaching the material.

 

[oiprocs]

You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

 

[Edgewardb]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
When are you planning to take it, and are you a junior or senior? You might also want to consider taking a course. That's what I'm doing now in preparation for the November test. The book was useful for practice tests, but it wasn't very good at teaching the material.

I am a Sophmore.

And we are taking the PSAT to prepare for the SAT.
So you guys heard good thing about college board SAT books?

 

[axelfox]

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

I would somewhat disagree with this. Although you can't really study the substance of the exam, you can look at past exams and see what types of questions they ask and know how to attack them. IMHO, learning how to take it is an important factor in doing well.

 

[StevenYoo]

Originally posted by: axelfox

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

I would somewhat disagree with this. Although you can't really study the substance of the exam, you can look at past exams and see what types of questions they ask and know how to attack them. IMHO, learning how to take it is an important factor in doing well.

and this is exactly why i recommend the College Board books.

I've looked through a hell of a lot of books (I tutor SAT stuff every now and then), and I must say that the College Board books' questions are most like the real thing

 

[oiprocs]

Originally posted by: axelfox

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

I would somewhat disagree with this. Although you can't really study the substance of the exam, you can look at past exams and see what types of questions they ask and know how to attack them. IMHO, learning how to take it is an important factor in doing well.

But, why do you want to do well? So that you can go to a good university? I think that's a bad reason to try and study for it.

Take your GPA. You study material, take exams on it, and you get a grade. Most of the time, but not always, if you get a high grade in the class, you acquired new knowledge. Sometimes, you may have gotten an average grade, but you may have learned a lot, just had bad test taking skills.

The point is, you aim to acquire knowledge. If you really learned something new, then an offset of that is having a decent GPA.

Some people just want a high GPA, and don't really care for the learning part. That is how I perceive the SAT. You aren't actually learning anything new, you're just trying to score as high as possible.

Plus, it really does mean nothing for university. I had a 1210 SAT, and every person in my dorm freshman year had a 1350+.

 

[Anubis]

this is how i studied for mine


i drank about 20 bears, chugged a bit of soco and smoked weed and opium, was found passed out vomiting all over myself the night before i took mine, should have gone to the ER, Didnt, got about an hour of sleep, was still wasted when i took it

over 1300, old version of it


the school i went to didnt require it, you dont have to put it on your app, they dont use it at all for admissions

 

[gamefreakgcb]

the grammatix SAT guide?

 

[HardcoreRobot]

take as many practice tests as you can

 

[Demo24]

screw the sat, take the act..its a much better test.

also the books dont help much. If you want to do well know geometry/trig and know English. Pretty lame way of measuring someone if you ask me. Because of course measuring 2 things out of all we learn in high school tells how smart a person is

 

[Throwmeabone]

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

I disagree, it really measures how well you know the test but being smart helps too. I took a Kaplan course and was scoring 1700-1900 (out of 2400) on the practice tests. After four of those, I took it for real and got a 2200. The most helpful part of it was not what I learned in the class, but just the experience with the test.

My recommendation to the OP is to get Cracking the SAT from the Princeton Review, which is my favorite study guide company ever. I've used their books for the SAT, several SAT subject tests, and AP's. You may also want to get 10 Real SATs for practice, but you have to treat the practice tests like they are real.

 

[esun]

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

You are wrong. There is plenty of evidence that you can study for the SAT. Some people can do well their first time, but almost everyone else can benefit from studying. They ask the same types of questions every year, and if you know about them, you can improve your score substantially.

Furthermore, it does matter what your score is for college admission. To say it doesn't is a lie, and anyone involved with college admissions will tell you that.

 

[oiprocs]

I stand corrected. My first line should have been written as follows:

"You cannot study for the SAT because it is pointless to study for the SAT......."

I remember reading about this girl in the paper, who had taken the SAT after studying and she scored a perfect 1600. Apparently that wasn't good enough for her, so she took it not once more, but twice more, scoring 2 more perfect 1600's. What does that prove? She knows the test, how it is structured, and what to look for. How does that measure aptitude?

It doesn't. I would recommend anyone to take the test first, see how well you do, see how much critical thinking you've developed in your time on the planet. If you aren't satisfied with the score, then study for it this time and take it again. But if you study for it the first time you take it, you're not measuring aptitude as much as you are measuring preparation.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: esun

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

Furthermore, it does matter what your score is for college admission. To say it doesn't is a lie, and anyone involved with college admissions will tell you that.

You are wrong, some schools do not require it, more and more are doing this now

the college I went do it was optional to even put on the app, you could just leave it blank, school is in the top 40 on that silly US News listing for small colleges

Few years ago Harvard said they were going to stop using the SAT for admissions as well its a moronic test

I know many people that aced it and failed out of college and likewise people that didn?t do so well that did great in school and now have great jobs and such

it tests how well you can take a test that has no bearing on anything other then how well you take that test

And the fact that I scored what I did on it in the state I was in pretty much proves that the test is crap, that night I vomited so much and got it on so much stuff my stomach acid ate through the paint in the bathroom and I had to repaint it

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: StevenYoo

Originally posted by: axelfox

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

I would somewhat disagree with this. Although you can't really study the substance of the exam, you can look at past exams and see what types of questions they ask and know how to attack them. IMHO, learning how to take it is an important factor in doing well.

and this is exactly why i recommend the College Board books.

I've looked through a hell of a lot of books (I tutor SAT stuff every now and then), and I must say that the College Board books' questions are most like the real thing

You cannot study for the SAT? Lie. Prep books/courses for the win. I'm not saying buy into the Princeton Review and Kaplan so easily but trust me if you studied hard and learned 400 new vocab words I can guarantee you that you just boosted your score.

It's not so much studying for hte SAT as it is prepping. If you're more familiar with math problems you will do better.

Tell this to the Asian kids who take prep classes in junior high and get their 1600s by the time they need to take it in high school. They will tell you it's possible to study. As an Asian kid put through all that I'll say the same. You can improve your score...

 

[esun]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: esun

Originally posted by: Oiprocs
You cannot study for the SAT. I repeat. You cannot study for the SAT.

It measures general aptitude. Yeah, you can look at TYPES of questions, but there is no material to base it off of.

It really matters not when going to college, only for freshman to brag about in the first week of school, and those guys are douche bags.

Furthermore, it does matter what your score is for college admission. To say it doesn't is a lie, and anyone involved with college admissions will tell you that.

You are wrong, some schools do not require it, more and more are doing this now

the college I went do it was optional to even put on the app, you could just leave it blank, school is in the top 40 on that silly US News listing for small colleges

Few years ago Harvard said they were going to stop using the SAT for admissions as well its a moronic test

I know many people that aced it and failed out of college and likewise people that didn?t do so well that did great in school and now have great jobs and such

it tests how well you can take a test that has no bearing on anything other then how well you take that test

And the fact that I scored what I did on it in the state I was in pretty much proves that the test is crap, that night I vomited so much and got it on so much stuff my stomach acid ate through the paint in the bathroom and I had to repaint it

If the list of colleges you apply to includes only those that do not consider SAT scores for admission, then you're absolutely right. For the other 99.9% of students, they are important. I've never stated or even implied that they are important measures of performance in college or that doing well indicates anything other than you know how to take the SAT. Nonetheless, telling other people to neglect them is bad advice. You could really hurt someone's chances of admission into a college they want to go to by misleading them like that.

 

[marvdmartian]

While you may not be able to study for the SAT, per se, as you can study for a history exam by memorizing facts, you can study how the questions are structured, and have an idea of what you'll run into. Believe it or not, that helps simply by not having to waste time during each section by sitting there saying, "WTF are they talking about? What sort of answer do they want here??"

I took the SAT during my sophomore year (~1978.....more years ago than I care to admit!!), and scored an 1120. Not bad, not great. In 1996, I was looking to go back to school full time, for an engineering degree, and decided it couldn't hurt to take the test again, in hopes of improving my score. Since it had been 17-1/2 years since the last time I'd taken it, I picked up a couple study guides with practise tests in the back of the books, and faithfully took each practise exam (tho I did them all at once, instead of timed sections, to save time). The study section I pretty much ignored, since I was interested only in the test structure.

Between NOT being 16-17 years old (and nervous as hell), the maturity that comes with being in your mid-30's (so more used to taking tests, etc), and the gazillion books I'd read in the intervening years, PLUS the practise tests I'd taken, I managed to improve my overall score by 300 points. Yeah. My math score went from a 630 to a 730, and my verbal from a 490 to a 690. I can't say for sure that the study guides were that much help, but I can't say they didn't, ya know?

Oh yeah, and you get a LOT more offers for scholarships & grants with a 1420 score than you do with an 1120 score!!

OP, the only thing I can recommend is to find a book that has a bunch of practise tests in it. They seemed to help me, hopefully they'll help you too. Good luck, and don't chew your pencil eraser!!