Reddit Reddit reviews The Official SAT Study Guide

We found 18 Reddit comments about The Official SAT Study Guide. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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18 Reddit comments about The Official SAT Study Guide:

u/epursimuove · 6 pointsr/changemyview

> The oarsman-regatta controversy was less than a decade ago

Wrong.

This question, if it ever existed, was used in the 70s or earlier. Here's a book from 1994 discussing it as an already "famous" question - they don't give the original source, but they cite the claim as far back as 1980. The SAT had long stopped using questions like this by the 90s.

The reason this one particular question has stayed so famous is because it's atypical - if bias were common, more examples would be given. In contrast, in the past few decades the SAT has shown a decided tendency towards including material that repeats multicultural pieties. Looking through the 10 tests in the official study guide, all of them have multiple reading passages about topics like black women's identities, Chicano labor organizers and Navajo sand-painters. Upper-class-whites only show up if those upper class whites are Victorian women heroically defying gender roles. For the record, I don't think this is a bad thing - talented students from all backgrounds are more than able to handle unfamiliar material, so the content of that material doesn't much matter. But claiming that the SAT is currently biased towards white culture (or has been at any point in the past 30 years) is patently prosperous.

And more to the point, minorities have historically done better on 'cultural knowledge' questions than they have on more purely intellectual questions.

> how can we be confident that any tool we use to measure merit is not corrupted by racial bias?

If a metric designed to predict an outcome (e.g., the SAT, which is meant to predict college GPA) is biased against a group, then members of that group will do better on that outcome than we'd expect from that metric. In this case, we'd expect black students to outperform what their SAT scores would indicate. But this is not the case - holding SAT scores constant, all races have comparable performance in college. Similar checking for bias has been done on just about every standardized test out there - and has confirmed a lack of bias in all of them.

u/theschizophreniac · 3 pointsr/Sat

My advice would be the sidebar + the blue book. Try taking one of the practice tests in the sidebar. If you score above a 1300 , you should be fine studying with whatever you can find on the internet. Otherwise, I'd recommend taking extra practice tests.

Also as someone from Turkey, I know that not all colleges require a 1200. I believe Kocaeli University only requires a 1000 with a 550 in math. Ankara only asks for a 1100 with 650 in math. The best state university in Turkey (boğaziçi) requires a 1250 with 680 in math. If you need help finding the requirements of specific colleges, feel free to PM me.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/exmuslim

Only a sophomore? Okay, okay, good. Keep your GPA high and make sure to do well on the SAT (buy the Big Blue Book for practice, use Khan Academy, a free online program, for help in math- they go through every math problem in the blue book). I'm talking 3.5+ unweighted GPA and 2100+ SAT, so you could get a full ride somewhere. Are you involved in any extra curriculars? What state are you in?

Also, I'll probably be out of home in a few years and by the off chance we're in the same city, maybe I'll be able to help you out (if you need a place to crash, or anything). ^(i'm not a pedophile i promise)

u/TissueReligion · 2 pointsr/GetMotivated

I'm not good at life-advice, but one thing I am good at is school-advice.

  1. Getting better grades: Improve your study skills. Many people have very, very poor study habits, and as such your grades at the high school level are affected much more (IMO) by study and focus skills than innate intelligence.

    I recommend you look at Cal Newport's blog, and buy one of his books. They're well worth it.

    Pertinent links:
    http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/14/how-to-ace-calculus-the-art-of-doing-well-in-technical-courses/

    http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/11/17/how-to-study-for-non-technical-science-courses/

    http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/02/11/monday-master-class-the-5-most-useful-study-hacks-articles-that-you-never-read/


    I recommend you make a list of all the classes you are taking, and then come up with an explicit strategy for each class as far as what you're going to do in each one to do well. Don't get carried away; going from a 2.5 to a 4.0 in one semester is difficult. Pick a realistic, reasonable goal, and work hard at it.

  2. Doing better on PSAT/SAT/ACT:

    http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-2nd/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342579097&sr=1-3&keywords=princeton+review+SAT

    http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Tests-PSAT-College-Preparation/dp/0375429344/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342579164&sr=1-3&keywords=princeton+review+SAT+practice+tests

    Buy these two books, as well as an SAT prep book of your choice (the two books here are just full of tests), the prep book actually has stuff you can learn.

    The princeton review book I linked is a book of tests, but it has explanations for all the answers. The official SAT book does not. So my advice would be to go take a full Princeton Review SAT and grade it. See what you got wrong and identify your weak spots. Then I would cross-check your weak spots with relevant sections from the prep book, think about what went wrong, how you can avoid that mistake in the future, what general rule you were missing/got wrong, etc.

    REPEAT AD NAUSEAM

    Once you feel like you are lord of princeton review, start taking your practice tests out of the official SAT book. Check your answers after every section, and THINK HARD ABOUT WHAT YOU GOT WRONG AND WHY YOU GOT IT WRONG.

    peace.

    Furthermore, recognize that this is not "gaming the test" or anything dumb like that, you really are IMPROVING YOUR KNOWLEDGE. So approach it from that viewpoint, not from the viewpoint of trying to game the SAT or something. That would be stupid.
u/Mikethechimp · 2 pointsr/unca

Great advice with everything besides the part concerning the SAT. I wouldn't take a prep course. If you are not motivated, it will not help. If you are motivated, then you wouldn't need it and it would be a wasted expense. Instead, most commonly recommended are this book for introductory material as well as practice tests and this one for vocabulary. They are very cheap! (You could probably even borrow them for free from the library)

I'm not a good example since I was somewhat obsessed, but through many (many!) practice and vocabulary books like those I improved my score by over 600 points relative to my PSAT results without spending more than $50 out of pocket.

u/failing_forwards · 2 pointsr/CasualConversation

Pick up the SAT study book from your local book store or amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-Second/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413328052&sr=1-1&keywords=sat+study+guide

This lays out the exact format of the SAT test, and it lets you really get a good feeling for it. It helps you plan out time in the test, and everything like that. This book helped me so much, you have no idea. It is entirely possible to do really well on the SAT even with mediocre grades!

Remember, the answer is always on the page with the SAT!

u/AnalogKid2112 · 2 pointsr/college

This is the #1 seller on Amazon with predominantly 5 star reviews

There's also an SAT prep section on Khan Academy if you want video lectures

u/HarzooNumber1457 · 1 pointr/Sat

No problem. Oh, one more thing, if you don't have an official SAT study guide, you should get one. It's basically just practice tests (it doesn't offer any tips or tricks) but it's still a helpful resource and becomes 10x more useful when you have those books I recommended- the math guide contains breakdowns of all the questions in it, and I think the grammar guide has something similar.

u/godlessatheist · 1 pointr/Sat

What score are you aiming for?

The SAT blue book helped me the most. To improve your critical reading score study the vocab terms and read books more often than you usually do. The only way I found to improve my math score was to continuously practice the math in the SAT blue book.

You seem to understand the grammar portion fairly well and I'm going to assume that most of the questions you missed were the "no error" questions. Once I got towards the 700's in the grammar portion I had a hard time getting it any higher simply because I would look for an error that wasn't there.

Anyways you have plenty of time to study and I would also recommend that you take the PSAT your Junior year. National Merit Semi finalists can get a lot of Scholarships for the PSAT.

u/applefrittersqq · 1 pointr/teenagers

For the SAT you'll want the classic Blue Book and for the ACT you'll want the Real ACT. These books both contain real tests previously administered by the College Board and ACT. They're the best source for practice material. Just take a shit ton of practice tests and make sure you go over every answer to understand why you got it wrong or right. That should prepare you.

u/rerers · 1 pointr/teenagers

I never tried the SAT course from collegeboard, but I was talking about this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Official-SAT-Study-Guide/dp/0874478529/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y/179-8509326-4155331

The first few hundred pages are just tips and in the end there are 10 practice tests (3 of which were actual SAT tests from previous years). If you don't understand a concept or question, or just need advice, use that forum I linked you. Brilliant ivy leage 2400ers on that forum.

u/blndatheart · 1 pointr/Teachers

Is your class for the SAT subject tests? You can use the CollegeBoard book (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0874477727), but there are only two practice tests in it and not very many extra questions. If you have a lot of your own notes and/or practice problems, this could be a great book because it's actually written by the CollegeBoard and uses previous tests.

If it's for the general SAT math sections, I'd definitely recommend the CollegeBoard book (http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-2nd/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376237363&sr=1-1&keywords=official+sat+study+guide). I'm an SAT tutor and love using this - I can teach my own strategies and assign practice problems from previous SAT tests. There's 10 full-length previously administered practice tests, so there's plenty of material. I have a syllabus with 8 general lessons and homework, and there are still enough sections to have up to a month's worth of practice before the test.

I've been tutoring for six years now (and I used to teach classes for a large test prep company) so if you need any help I'd be glad to give you some pointers. Good luck on your class!

u/tloll · 1 pointr/GetStudying

All very awesome advice. I'm an SAT tutor in VA and all the tips are on point. I have one suggestion to add on, however. You're using the Princeton Review book, which may be decent proprietary material. BUT, you are taking a collegeboard test written by collegeboard people. Therefore, you might want to look into trashing the Princeton and getting a hold of the Official SAT Study Guide.

Don't waste your time with stuff other people were paid to write. The format, structure, and feel of the Princeton tests are completely different from what the actual SAT is like.

u/askingquestionz · 1 pointr/Sat

The description of the book you listed is the same description as the pre-changed sat book, so I don't know if this is real or just a bug.

https://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-Second/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486781183&sr=1-2&keywords=sat+official+guide

u/microslayer · 1 pointr/Sat

The blue book, the blue book, the blue book. You could see your scores seriously jump just by completing all the SAT tests in it.

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Study-Guide-Second-Edition/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414986572&sr=8-2&keywords=sat+collegeboard+book

u/well_uh_yeah · 1 pointr/education

I agree that authentic materials are essential. The blue book is the way to go for that.

In the interest of using everything available...there are some really good "guides" on collegeconfidential. It's obvious that a lot of the kids (adults? whatevers?) on that site have put a LOT of time and thought into their preparation and are altruistically choosing to share it with others. No reason others shouldn't benefit from it.

Students who are scoring below 700 can greatly benefit from these sorts of courses. After suffering a lot of anxiety about how to organize such a course myself a few years ago, I ended up finding, using, and really liking this book: The New Math SAT Game Plan

I'd love to hear what sort of thoughts you have on running the prep course. Do you have a good location? Administration is the main thing that has prevented me from getting something like this up and running on a consistent basis...

u/brainslugged · 1 pointr/gatech

Like a lot of people are saying SAT is low.

But the good news is that you can raise it easily (relative to raising GPA) and cheaply.

This guy has some pretty good tutorials. Especially, pay attention to the writing and reading videos.

Buy an SAT Blue Book and do EVERY SINGLE practice test and problem. The book isn't too expensive, I even got mine from Goodwill for 3 or 4 dollars. You can print off sheets to bubble (set it to just print page 5-8 in the print menu) so that you can reuse the book and/or resell it.

If you have done all the problems in the Blue Book, You can do problems online, but I would stick to official SAT tests given after the last reform (anything in or after the 2nd Edition Blue Book I think is fine, the newer the better).

If you really are so passionate about math and could do it all day, do the SAT math all day, or at least for a few hours every day. There is a finite amount of types of questions they can ask since the test is standardized. If you master the questions they ask, you will have mastered everything they will throw at you, even the problems that seem weird. They cannot make surprise questions because of the nature of the test.

My first SAT score was 1850, and my 2nd was 2070 with only doing 2 of the practice tests in the blue book and watching a lot of the videos. It helps A LOT. In fact, I would say that the reading and writing are almost entirely just based on basic ability to read and knowing what kind of mode to get in.

Get your SAT score up high enough, and the GPA won't be as much of a problem (although you should still try to raise it, and certainly don't let it fall any more).

u/qogofud · 0 pointsr/ApplyingToCollege

I'd buy both real practice tests (which are offered in both official guides: http://www.amazon.com/Real-ACT-3rd-Prep-Guide/dp/0768934400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425879363&sr=8-1&keywords=act+prep+book, http://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-Second/dp/0874478529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425879392&sr=8-1&keywords=collegeboard+blue+book), sit down, and take the tests as if they're the real thing. That way, you'll know what you can expect on the SAT and the ACT with your current practice.

It sounds like the ACT is a better option for you, though you should check the standardized test requirements for the colleges you're applying to.