Even better, all official SAT practice tests are free! Make sure to print them out to get the realistic on-paper testing experience. Unfortunately, the book itself isn't sufficient, and even with the practice tests above you'll likely need supplemental help as I explain below.
What it does have, though, is so good that I believe every student studying with SAT prep books should read it. But what does this mean exactly? Here are a few examples:. The concepts in this book were things I understood intuitively back when I took the SAT and was studying for a perfect score. This resource influenced the way I think about teaching our students at PrepScholar.
Overall, of all books on the market, the Black Book aligns most closely with my personal philosophies on how to succeed on the SAT. Once again, I highly recommend these two resources for all students studying with or only with SAT prep books. We cover most of the important concepts in the Black Book in our SAT prep program and also provide focused practice on individual skills.
As mentioned above, you'll most likely need specific training on each subject to be able to shore up your weaknesses. Next, we provide you with key resources for individual subjects on the SAT. We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:. These books all follow my SAT prep philosophy :.
In my experience with thousands of students, SAT Reading is the most difficult section score to improve. This section uses logical reasoning skills that aren't as easily mastered as math concepts or grammar rules are. As a result, it's extremely important to learn what kinds of questions will be asked and how you can approach them in a systematic way. This book dissects the SAT Reading section by question type and skill, and does a great job teaching the core of what each question is asking.
It also clearly explains how to work with a passage to arrive at the correct answer. Of all writers, Meltzer uses an approach to SAT Reading prep that aligns most closely with mine : to drill questions skill by skill so you can recognize patterns. My philosophy on SAT Math is that the best way to significantly improve your Math score is to learn the underlying content. Getting familiar with math questions and learning some strategies like plugging in answer choices can help you make some progress, but you'll quickly run into a wall if you have gaps in your underlying math knowledge.
Your best bet, therefore, is to find a book that can teach you math content in an organized way and give you practice problems you can use to focus on individual skills. It should also cater to your skill level since math questions that are too hard or easy for you will be a waste of time. He's written multiple SAT prep books for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students, and has a set of SAT Math problems organized by topic and difficulty. If you're really struggling with SAT Math at a basic level say, scoring and below , I recommend supplementing your work with Khan Academy 's math modules.
This website is a free program that provides an engaging way to train your most basic skills. The best way to excel at SAT Writing is to understand the grammar rules and how they appear on the test.
You also need to answer a lot of high-quality practice questions to ensure you learn the patterns of the SAT that's how we designed our online SAT program to teach you grammar! Once again, I'm returning to Erica L. Meltzer for her SAT grammar books. Meltzer's fantastic at distilling all the rules of English grammar into what you need to know for the SAT; you won't learn any arcane grammar concepts not on the SAT. For the rules that are tested, Meltzer presents them clearly and covers their foundations in case you've forgotten grammar rules learned in school.
Neither book is sufficient on its own, which is a big drawback. The first one doesn't have enough SAT Writing questions to let you really drill grammar rules. Meanwhile, the second one doesn't teach grammar rules, and questions aren't organized by rule. These problems can complicate studying for students, but I still believe these are the best SAT Writing books out there.
Bonus: Looking for the very best guides to every SAT section? Check out our top guides for every single section of the SAT. Choose the score level you're aiming for:. Choose these guides if you're scoring a or above on a section, and you want to get the highest SAT score possible. Choose these guides if you're scoring below a on a section, and you want to boost your score to at least a level.
These are the very best guides available on boosting your SAT score, section by section. They're written by Harvard grads and perfect SAT scorers. Don't disappoint yourself—read these guides and improve your score today. As you can see, you already have a lot to work on.
With 10 full-length practice tests and more than five SAT books at your disposal, you'll be studying for well over 50 hours. By using the guidelines we recommend, you can make huge improvements in your score. If you still need extra practice, though, I recommend Barron's SAT prep books , especially if you want a perfect or near-perfect score. I remember using these books for my own SAT prep in high school.
While their questions aren't as good as those in official SAT practice tests, they're a solid backup source to use when you finish all the other SAT prep books above.
So far my recommendations have been primarily for the super ambitious students who really want to improve their SAT scores. But I know that there are some students who just want to put in a few hours of prep, get exposure to the test, and then take the SAT and forget about it. I personally believe that for most test takers, raising your SAT score is the best way to improve your chances of college admission. If you don't want to put in hours of time to raise your score, I strongly suggest questioning your approach to test prep.
Still, some of you either won't have the time or motivation to prep better. It's an all-in-one book that covers the three sections and has a wide assortment of practice questions and tests. The book doesn't excel at any of what it's doing , but it addresses the most important bases for SAT prep. The truth is, I don't love this book. I don't even really like it. I don't recommend it if you actually want to improve your score and are willing to put in the study time needed to do so.
However, if you just want a single resource that's easily digestible and does an OK job teaching you the basics, this book is the best one out there. Unlike every other section in this guide, I'm making one specific recommendation against buying an SAT book.
This is particularly unusual because, prior to , this was the 1 SAT prep book to get! So what book is it? It feels really weird to recommend not buying this book because, for years and years, this was the book to use to study for the SAT. This guide used to contain 10 full-length practice tests you could only get by buying the book. Only 60 percent of traditionally certified students did the same. Why does an alternative certification program produce teachers with staying power?
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To register for the SAT , you must create an account on the College Board website and upload a picture of yourself.
You can then use this site to register for the SAT, learn about AP tests, and research colleges across the country. But this isn't all the College Board does. For one, it breaks down the SAT's overall format and skills: you can go " inside the test " to see what concepts are tested on the Reading , Math , and Writing sections. Some descriptions are a bit wordy and confusing, so you'll have to look elsewhere if you want to learn about the test in more accessible language.
This website also offers free prep material , including SAT practice questions and eight full-length practice tests. SAT questions from the test makers are the gold standard when it comes to test prep. You can access dozens of sample questions for Reading , Writing , and Math , and you'll get to see all correct answers and answer explanations.
Because the full-length tests are the same as those in The Official SAT Study Guide plus two extra tests not included in the book , I advise printing them out on your own rather than buying the book. Make sure to time yourself as you take the practice tests, and spend ample time correcting your answers with the answer keys provided. What concepts are tested on the SAT? What are the different skill sets you need for Writing and Reading? What kinds of tricks can you use to keep yourself from running out of time?
The College Board doesn't want you to know that questions follow certain standardized templates, or that you'll usually find the same kinds of wrong answers on Reading questions meant to distract you from the correct one. Nor will it give you strategies for reading passages quickly and efficiently or managing your time on tricky math questions.
So what resources should you use instead? The following SAT websites are the most useful for learning the content and format of the SAT and getting down critical test-taking strategies. Our SAT blog offers in-depth coverage of each section of the test.
Read about what's tested on each of the four sections, learn every detail of the SAT structure , and get a comprehensive look at the most recent SAT data, including average scores and percentiles.
Some of our best guides to help you understand the content and format of the SAT are as follows:. I also suggest exploring our General Info articles for information on topics such as test dates, scoring , sending scores , and the best books for SAT prep.
Although learning about the content and format of the SAT is relatively straightforward, finding effective strategies for answering questions and saving time on it are fewer and further between. The following list contains 10 of our most useful and popular SAT strategy guides. You can find more under the SAT Strategy category as well:. This is just a small sampling of the SAT strategy guides we offer. In addition to these, we've written tons of guides specific to Math, Reading, and Writing for students in grades 9 through 12, and for middle schoolers who are starting prep early or taking the SAT to qualify for talent competitions.
Over the years, Meltzer's blog has evolved from covering standardized testing to addressing many issues facing students today. That means you will probably have to dig through the site's extensive archives to find SAT prep articles. Many of those posts cover general topics, like learning vocabulary in context and comma usage. That said, Meltzer offers several useful posts and will most likely continue to add to them.
Here are some of her posts that are definitely worth checking out:. I suggest exploring the blog for more tips for the verbal sections. Although her posts are engaging, Meltzer ultimately leaves it up to you to seek out examples and sample questions when trying out her advice. This website lets you download PDFs containing critical math facts, formulas, strategies, and vocabulary. However, it's important to note that this website is even less updated for the SAT than Meltzer's blog is.
The math resources here have remained unchanged since the old pre SAT and thus don't reflect the current SAT format, question types, and skills tested. I decided to keep this website on this list because many of the math concepts explained here—especially the algebraic ones—are essential to your performance on SAT Math.
The PDFs Erik the Red has are still useful review for content areas like linear equations, nonlinear equations, functions, quadratic equations, and graphs. You could use them as review, but be sure to focus on the skills that will actually appear on the SAT and leave out the ones that are less important.
If you have general questions about the form or content of the SAT that aren't answered in the resources above, try College Confidential. This website offers several student and parent discussion threads about the SAT, which you can peruse or even comment on.
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