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The Official SAT Study Guide | 
| Author: The College Board
Publisher: College Board
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $13.57
You Save: $6.38 (32%)
Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 108
Media: Paperback
Edition: 4th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 889
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.1
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.3 x 2.1
ISBN: 0874477182
Dewey Decimal Number: 378.1662
EAN: 9780874477184
Publication Date: January 7, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
In March 2005, the College Board will begin to administer a new SAT. To help prepare all students for the new SAT and college success(tm), the College Board introduces: The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT(tm) Here's the successor to the College Board's #1 best seller 10 Real SATs. This new book is the only one with practice tests created by the test maker according to proprietary new SAT specifications. With the book's 700+ pages and 21 chapters, students: - Gain experience by taking 8 practice tests and receiving estimated scores.
- Raise confidence by reviewing concepts, test-taking approaches, and practice questions.
- Increase understanding of the new PSAT/NMSQT and the new SAT. Plus, book buyers receive free online score reports and a discount on The Official SAT Online Course(tm) with auto essay scoring.
Changes to the new SAT include: The name of the current SAT verbal section will be changed to critical reading, analogies will be eliminated and short reading passages will be added to existing long reading passages. A new section called the SAT writing section will be added, which will contain multiple-choice grammar and usage questions and a student- written essay. The SAT math section will be expanded to include topics from third-year college- preparatory math (also known as Algebra II); in addition, quantitative comparisons will be eliminated from this section. The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT is part of the College Board's new SAT Readiness Program(tm) of print, online, and professional development resources.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 111 more reviews...
 Great Start to Studying for the SAT January 27, 2005
135 out of 162 found this review helpful
"The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT" by the College Board is where studying starts for the famous high school exam. It is their test, and so it is important to see their prep materials. Stop with that, and you'll sell yourself short. However, if you skip this book, you will miss out on the insiders version.
What Good Is This Book?
The College Board version presents their bias. That's good because they know what is coming up in the next exam.
The practice tests are so important. The College Board gives you eight of them, but try to take more. Again, start with this book, and move onward.
What's missing? The good stuff. More exams. Other voices. The reality is, the playing field for this test is not level. Those taking courses on SAT test taking have an advantage, as do those plowing through Kaplan books, or those published by the Princeton Review. Skip those options, and expect a lower score than you could otherwise have received.
What's really missing? The hardcore strategies. The College Board isn't intending to make the test easy. They want it fair, and to be an exam of true gained knowledge. While this noble desire eventually will be the real indicator of collegiate success, the point of most students for taking it isn't about potential success. It is about money, and/or acceptance to the school of their choice.
Get into that incredible college, and continue the same effort in your courses, and the world is yours. It starts with getting accepted.
Who Needs To Buy a Book?
The SAT is coming up. If you're bright, you'll do well. Doing well isn't good enough. If getting into the local state college is your goal, consider it done. Get something above a 'C' GPA, and something above 1,000 or 1,100 and you meet your goal.
If scholarships, or acceptance at a better school are important to you, then you need to study. Good students study. Great students study a lot. "The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT" is part of that studying.
I fully recommend "The Official SAT Study Guide: For the New SAT" by the College Board.
Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com
Pair This Book With Barron's!! May 24, 2005
117 out of 128 found this review helpful
I am a verbal SAT tutor for the past 26 years. Here is my formula for success, and it is the reason that people pay me an insane amount of money to work with their kids. Step #1 -- Get the Barron's SAT book first. Do every test. Read the answer explanations carefully. Step #2 -- Get this book. Take the 8 practice tests, sitting straight through for each exam, 4 hours with the break. This book is easier than Barrons, so you should feel an improvement when you take these real tests. Get the book HOT WORDS FOR THE SAT by Linda Carnevale, and learn a few chapters each week. Good luck on the exam!!
 New SAT, But Not All New Questions October 13, 2004
96 out of 106 found this review helpful
To save yourself some money, don't rush into buying this book. You may not need it. The College Board provides a copy of a complete New SAT test on its web site, which you can download for FREE. This book provides 8 additional tests. However, a fair number of questions are recycled from the guide to the "old" SAT, called 10 Real SATs, which you or an older sibling may already own. Also, this book provides only an answer key for each test, not the explanations. This somewhat limits its usefulness.
 Both an upgrade and a downgrade in this new revision February 28, 2006
49 out of 51 found this review helpful
"The Official SAT Study Guide" is "10 Real SATs" in all but name. Created and published by the College Board--the creators and administrators of the actual SAT--this series has for years been the single most valuable resource for SAT preparation. The value does not necessarily derive from the instructional material that makes up the first portion of the book (which is instructive and adequate, but nothing spectacular), but from the actual SAT tests from which the series used to get its name. While the multipound test-prep tomes from Kaplan, Princeton Review, and others all have their strong points, nothing beats having *actual SAT questions and tests* at your disposal; yes, there is a distinct difference between questions actually vetted by ETS and those created by third-party companies. Simply put, 10 Real SATs was *the* tool for preparing for the most overemphasized-yet-necessary test on the block.
The recent advent of the "New" SAT (which, for the record, removes Quantitative Comparisons and analogies, adds some higher math content, introduces "short" reading comprehension passages, and features a watered-down version of the old SAT II writing with an additional 25 minute, blink-and-you'll-miss-it essay section that receives far too much press) meant that the Real SAT product line was due for an upgrade. As prior "new editions" of 10 Real SATs rarely featured changes that weren't of a we-swapped-out-two-tests-and-added-in-two-new-tests character, I was curious to see how the College Board would revamp its flagship line. Unfortunately, it's a mixed effort.
For starters, we now have *8* full-length tests. Granted, each test is a decent bit longer--the new SAT is an absolute marathon--but the net effect is still a bit detrimental; needless to say, it's unsurprising that the College Board elected to avoid calling this book "8 Real SATs!" (These also aren't "real" SATs, a problem I'll get to momentarily)
The writing section is generally well introduced in the instructional material. As mentioned before, the "new" writing section is in reality a watered-down version of the old SAT II writing, but it's presented well. My big criticism here involves the book's treatment of the essay. It presents "samples" of good essays, bad essays, and essays in between. Page 123 presents an essay that supposedly received a score of "6" (the highest score available), and I'm halfway convinced that this example of SAT perfection is the cause of at least some of the overemphasis of the essay by panicked parents; pedantic, long-winded, and full of jargon, it sounds decidedly unlike something a normal high-school Junior would create in 25 minutes. There's another example of an essay that received the top score on the preceding two pages, and it is MUCH more palatable, but it is written in handwriting (as opposed to "handwriting font") and is thus frequently ignored...which is quite unfortunate.
The real problem with this book, though, is that those celebrated "real" SATs...well, aren't anymore. Oh, to be sure, these are still real College Board questions, and the book is still valuable for that alone. But these SATs were *never given*, and as such the scoring data--a valuable part of prior editions--is next to useless.
For example, instead of the one-through-five difficulty scale, we get a three-stage "easy, medium, hard" scale for ranking questions, which is far less useful than the ranked-by-reaction scores in the old book. Worse, the difficulty rankings seem to have no real basis in reality, especially in the new Writing section; whole sections that all receive an "easy" ranking will demonstrate distinct fluctuations in difficulty.
It's the scoring information, though, that is really the book's biggest flaw. With older editions, after struggling through a timed practice test, you received the satisfaction of getting a distinct score; those "Real SATs" were actually given, and thus raw scores were accurately weighted to a corresponding score on the infamous out-of-1600 scale. For the new SAT, this immediately becomes somewhat problematic, as the inclusion of the essay makes scoring of the writing section difficult. But as these SATs were never given, there isn't a real scale for the conversion of raw scores to weighted scores. Instead, the CB presents a *range* of possible scores; unfortunately, these ranges are often frustratingly broad and vague ("610-690" is a huge range to contemplate).
I suppose the above criticism is somewhat unfair, as the College Board was confronted with an unwinnable dilemma. On one hand, it could delay the revision of its flagship title until enough SATs had been administered to generate a "real SAT" book; on the other, doing so would result in the odd situation of the College Board not releasing an official guide to its own creation! This dilemma, however, does not excuse the College Board from creating a new edition that is decidedly less useful than preceding editions.
Verdict: Yes, "The Official SAT Study Guide" is still the best thing out there, as its ability to use actual SAT questions makes it an invaluable study tool. Be aware, though, that accurate scoring is almost impossible with the new edition.
 Just because it's from the college board it doesn't mean anything November 9, 2005
22 out of 42 found this review helpful
This book, by far, is the worst book for preperation. Just because it's from the collegeboard "the test makers" doesnt mean that its good (actually ETS makes the test, not collegeboard). The book gives very simple examples, not much help or hints or "way of eliminating the answere." They just say "which one sounds wrong." ALso, the pactice test do not align with the actual SAT, it's easier (in the book). Also the practice test just comes with an answer key, and they expect YOU to figure out the answeres, if you want the explination, you'll have to buy "the official SAT online Course" which cost $60 or $80 dollars (the online course also sucks). So don't buy this book. also, they give the lames tips "stay focused, think positive" and my most favorite one "remember you are in control" which your acutually not, your a statistic in the Normal Distribution, so actually YOU are NOT in control.
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