Effective learning is often the difference between failure and success, and this edition of the Kaplan SAT Book and CD-Rom has proved to me to be the most sane and powerful learning material yet. I know that I am not very smart, but I pride myself in being able to follow instructions. This edition of Kaplan gave me the necessary information and confidence to score a 1550 on my first try at the SAT test. I found all sections such as writing basics, the essay, reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary, practice tests and others to be quite helpful and informative. I highly recommend this publication to all students and parents of students with college plans.

This book, explains in detail too much of the writing section, but not good on the "critical reading" and math sections. The math questions they provide does not align with the real questions asked in the New SAT. It has good explinations of the practice test, but the content wasnt all that great. I especially hated when this book gives you a list of words to remember and make you write them in cards. The other publishers GIVE you the cards, that you can just tare out, so that's the biggest downside. Again i do not recomend this, use Princeton, MCGraw, or Barrons. DO NOT BUT THE COLLEGE BOARD's.

This book goes through each section of the test giving you facts, stratagies, review, practice, and explinations that are really useful. I like the essay stratagies and most common writing errors (16 for error identification and 15 for improving sentences). The critical reading is good and has great explinations to there practice and the math goes over every concept touched on the test. I particually liked the math trap section where they give you a trap test with 10 of the most common ETS math traps and then explain each question, followed by another trap test. There were a lot of questions not including the NINE practice tests and the online review and practice. People usually say that kaplan inflates scores, but I found the raw score to scaled score chart (for math and critical reading) to be exactly the same as the one in the practice test the college board published (you can find it on there website). With or without the official study guide, this guide is great!