CEEAE's Review of Fiske - Nailing the New SAT

FULL REVIEW
WHAT IS THE SAT?
This book is separated into three main parts. The first part discusses what the SAT is and how it came into existence. It also considers some of the sociological issues surrounding the exam and ends by exposing why the New SAT came into existence. Then it turns to how the College Entrance Exams (SAT and ACT) are used in college admissions. A cursory comparison of the ACT and SAT is presented with various statistics about how many students take the exams and how to compare scores on these exams.

The next section attemps to determine what is appropriate preparation for the SAT. The authors state that College Board has done their own research which shows that preparation does not make a difference, but Princeton Review and Kaplan (two prominent test preparation companies) have also done their own research which shows that preparation does make a difference. It should be obvious that this research, from both College Board as well as the test prep companies, is subject too a number of potential biases. Consequently, the authors conducted their own study and found that class or individual preparation did not make a difference in SAT score performance. In fact, if we focus on the average performance, students in prep courses or tutoring received lower scores than those who did not utilize SAT preparation services. The authors admit that there may be many reasons for this, besides the obvious. One potential confounding factor is that students who believe they will do well on the SAT will likely not pursue preparation. So the group of students who attended preparation classes may have started from a lower average scores, than the group who elected to eschew prep courses or tutoring. In other words, more research is needed to determine the efficacy of organized SAT preparation.

The authors of this book, however, then conclude that prep courses or tutoring is not worthwhile, and they present quotes from selected students in their study who support their position. They then chastise the SAT preparation industry as disingenuously preying on the fears of parents and students. The conclusion, according to the authors is for students to prepare themselves and perhaps not-too-surprisingly to utilize their book, along with The Official SAT Study Guide, in this self-preparation.

Ceeae is composed of some of those malicious members of the test prep-industrial complex, and we would like to take a moment to respond. First, the authors of this book are dead on when they state that the student must "own" their SAT preparation. If the student is not willing to put in the hours of hard work it takes to improve their test scores, then she can rest assured that her scores will not improve. There is an old adage: "how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice". For SAT preparation, this could not be more true. In SAT preparation, as in most things, success is only accomplished when the student works in session as well as at home, reinforcing the material learned from the session.

However, a good tutor or teacher will save the student hours of repetitive work by pointing out salient strategies and by tailoring a preparation schedule and lessons to the student's strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, there is a wide range of ability among different tutors and teachers, but caring and informed tutors will undubitably help their students effectively prepare for the big day.

So the reader may ask if there is any merit to the argument presented in this book? We would respond that it is likely that there is some merit to it, but the authors of this book have yet to substantiate their claim, and our collective experience runs counter to the author's claims. The next obvious question is should students prepare themselves? Some students will be able to prepare themselves and they should save the money that would have been spent on SAT preparation and go it alone, at least for the first test, then if their self-preparation does not bear fruit, then they should investigate professional class-based or individual preparation.

STRATEGIES, GOOD
The next section contains an introduction to the SAT as well as a number of strategies for all of the subject areas and question types. The strategies appear to cover the basic issues and a few "juicy" strategies, but the strategies are not as advanced as in other prep books and there are fewer reinforcement problems.

PRACTICE TESTS - A LITTLE TOO ACCURATE?
We are not looking to get anyone in trouble here, but let's just say that the authors of this book are very fond of The Official SAT Study Guide. If you are looking for a couple of tests that are very similar to the eight in The Official SAT Study Guide, this is the book to get. Because these two exams are extremely accurate to those in The Official SAT Study Guide they are subject to the same criticisms. The major criticism is that the Sentence Completion questions are easier than those on actual exams. Also, the math questions may also be a little easier than those on actual exams, but everything else is extremely accurate.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, though this book features a number of good strategies and two extremely accurate exams, we cannot recommend it because too much space is devoted to issues surrounding the SAT, and not enough space is spent on actual preparation and reinforcement problems.

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