CEEAE's Review of Peterson's Ultimate SAT Tool Kit (2006)

FULL REVIEW
WHY THE SHORT REVIEW?
Remember when your mom advised: "if you don't have anything good to say then don't say anything at all". In accordance with this advice, this review will be very short.

The best thing we can say about this book is that it provides some pretty standard strategies and reinforcement problems. Indeed, the section on the Essay is very good, and a number of accurate prompts are provided with good explanations on what types of material should have been included to get a certain score. next section attemps to determine what is appropriate preparation for the SAT.

HORRIBLY FLAWED TEST FORMAT
There must have been some bad information given to test prep companies since so many book present the same flawed test format. Unfortunately, this book follows the same flawed format, but with a bizarre twist. There are 10 sections on the actual SAT, but the practice tests in some books will have only 9 sections. This discrepancy is due to the fact that 1 of the 10 sections does not count toward the student's score, so these books notify the student that there are really 10 sections on the exam but only present 9 in their practice tests, since only 9 sections will count in determining their score (Princeton Review's SAT book is the only book that has all 10 sections in each practice test). This book, however, has only 8 sections, so it is missing something.

The first thing missing from the practice tests is a 10 minute section on multiple choice Writing Skills problems. Also, the number of questions in EVERY section is incorrect. Not some sections, but every section! For some unknown reason the Essay is at the end of the practice exams, when in reality the Essay is the first section on the actual SAT. Although, all Critical Reading sections on the actual exam contain Sentence Completions, only two sections on the practice tests contained them. Finally, the actual test has one Math section with 8 multiple choice and 10 Grid-In problems, but these practice tests featured a section with 18 questions that were all multiple choice, and then another section with 16 Grid-Ins, but there are only 10 Grid-Ins on the entire real SAT!

The practice tests were accompanied by adequate explanations, and the questions were adequate in accuracy.

TEXTBOOK-LIKE PRESENTATION
First, although we are not fans of a very dry, textbook-like presentation of strategies and of material review does not mean that it is necessarily a negative, but our collective experience tells us that this presentation will not be conducive to learning for most students as well. If you like the textbook-like presentation, we recommend McGraw-Hill's SAT I book, but we suspect that those who do prefer it are in the minority. The wall of text on every page makes even the most ardent reader despondent. There is something psychologically intimidating about page after page of extremely dense text. Unfortunately, this is the strategy employed by Peterson's guide. Another reason why a presentation of a boundless block of text is less effective is that it is much harder to extrace the main point or idea from a block of monochromatic text. We found this to be especially true when we turned to the Math review section. There was not anything intrinsically wrong with the review, but it hurt our eyes to go over the material, and we know it already!

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this book features one of the most horribly flawwed practice test format ever viewed. Though it does present a reasonable review as well as adequate strategies, its presentation is just too dry to be effective. Therefore, we cannot recommend this book since far better alternatives are readily available.

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