I strongly, strongly advise you to follow along with the Blue Book solutions in this book, because seeing the proper approach to the SAT in action against real questions is an indispensable part of your preparation, and will make things a lot clearer.
You can probably get a copy of the Blue Book from a library, but I recommend that you get a copy of your own from Amazon, which usually has the lowest prices. That way you can mark up the copy as you would mark up a test booklet, and you won’t have two worry about looking at other people’s notes in a used copy. At the time of this writing, a new copy of the book is selling for around $10 on Amazon. Here’s a link where I keep a page with the best deals on the Blue Book: http://www.SATprepBlackBook.com/blue-book.
If you combine this Black Book with the College Board’s Blue Book, you won’t need any other resources to prepare for the SAT.
Using This Book To Prepare For The PSAT
With the changes that were made to the PSAT and SAT in 2004 and 2005, the two tests became much more similar than they were before. Every type of multiple-choice question that appears on one test now appears on the other as well. This makes it much easier for you to prepare for the PSAT and the SAT at the same time.
The only important difference between the PSAT and the SAT is that the PSAT does NOT include a handwritten essay portion like the SAT does.
The two tests also have different numbers of sections and different numbers of questions per section.
So, as a practical matter, the best way to prepare for the PSAT is simply to prepare for the SAT as you normally would—the PSAT might even seem a little easier in comparison, just because it has fewer questions overall. If you don’t have much time before the PSAT and you haven’t started preparing for the SAT yet, then you can leave out the essay portion of your SAT prep and only focus on the parts of the SAT that will appear on the PSAT.
Frequently Asked Questions
I thought it would be a good idea to start the book with a section of Frequently Asked Questions, since certain issues and feedback seem almost universal. So let’s dive right in.
General Questions
How long will I need to practice?
There is no set amount of time that every student should plan to spend practicing. It varies heavily from person to person. Your goal should be to develop a deep understanding of the way the SAT works, not to log an arbitrary number of practice hours. For more on this, see the section called “Things To Think About For Scheduling” in the chapter called “How To Train For The SAT—Mastering The Ideas In This Book.”
Where did you learn these strategies?
I didn’t “learn” these strategies in the sense of having some book or tutor explain them to me. I developed them on my own based on my own reasoning and analysis of the test. Over the years, I have refined both the strategies themselves and the way that I teach them to students. For more on my background and the way it has informed my test-prep training, please see the relevant articles on my blog at www.TestingIsEasy.com.
What’s the best way to start implementing your strategies?
The best way to get started is generally to learn the strategies in an abstract way first, and then to see several sample solutions that implement the strategies against real College Board questions. Finally, it’s important to try to implement the strategies yourself, and to try to figure things out on your own as much as you can when you get stuck. For more ideas on specific drills and exercises, please see the “Drills And Exercises” section in the chapter called “How To Train For The SAT—Mastering The Ideas In This Book.” For a selection of videos that demonstrate the ideas in this book, please visit www.SATprepVideos.com (those sample videos are free to readers of this book).
Do these strategies work on the ACT? What about on the SAT Subject Tests?
All well-designed standardized tests must follow certain rules and patterns when they create their test questions—otherwise the tests wouldn’t be standardized. But those particular rules and patterns don’t have to be the same for every standardized test. ACT questions have their own standardized design elements that are different from those of SAT questions but still fairly similar to them. The SAT Subject Tests have the added wrinkle of involving a bit more subject-matter knowledge in most cases.
So the short answer is that the specific strategies in this book are aimed at the SAT in particular. Some will work fairly well on other tests, and some won’t. But the general idea of analyzing a standardized test in terms of rules and patterns can still be applied successfully against the ACT and the SAT Subject Tests.