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HomeShop at BookSurgeBiography & AutobiographyCriminals & OutlawsMaximum SAT: Second Edition |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 7 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 Great Resource for the SAT Mar 26, 2007
By Andy
There are plenty of SAT prep books on the market, but this one stands out. Any experienced SAT tutor (I've been tutoring for 15 years) will tell you that the best way to practice is to do as many real SAT questions as possible. "Maximum SAT" recognizes this; after teaching a concept, it points students to real practice questions from the College Board's Official Guide (the best source of real SAT questions available). This book is thorough and easy to understand; using this book in conjunction with the Official Guide will help any serious student raise his or her score.
10 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Suspect publicity Jul 08, 2007
By Mark Twain
"Sam"
Three reviews with five stars between May 21 and May 26, 2007, all from LA, saying much the same thing? Beware.
The one star reviews are ridiculous Nov 01, 2011
By Urie Bay
I've known and recommended this book (in the first edition) for years, and was pulling up the book on Amazon to recommend to a friend whose son is preparing for the SAT and was surprised when I saw the low ratings, so I read the reviews and looked into the comments. As I mentioned, this is a second edition, and turns out the author is a highly successful teacher/tutor in the Los Angeles area with a long-standing tutoring company. (And interestingly, he also apparently has a background LSAT test prep questions for the leading prep company in the country.) It's not surprising to me that some of his students wrote enthusiastic reviews of the new edition right after it came out. For a more balanced set of reviews, check out the reviews of the first edition of the book.
I'm a pediatrician who is deeply invested in encouraging academic success in my patients. I start talking to them about books as soon as they can talk, I talk with parents about the area schools (since in San Diego there's a huge amount of choice involved in where you send you kids and it can be very confusing for parents to navigate), patients virtually always leave their physicals with an individualized reading list, we start talking about planning for college when they're in 7th or 8th grade and college selection by their sophomore year. I've never had a patient come back with negative comments about this book (and believe me, they tell me when they don't like something I've recommended!!! One parent told me that it alone had raised his son's score almost 500 points.
I did well enough on the PSAT/SAT back in the pre-test prep days to get into a school US News and World Reports regularly rates as the best college in the country (as ridiculous as their rating system is, it's still a pretty darned good school, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend) plus medical education and a medical career are nothing so much as an unending series of standardized testing and licensing exams, so I know a bit about standardized testing, and I keep up on the available resources for my patients. Let me start by saying THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A STAND ALONE PREP BOOK. If you buy it thinking that it is, you won't understand anything in the book. What this book provides is a far more detailed and comprehensive explanation of how to approach all of the questions in the Official SAT prep book. (Which offers fairly lousy explanations.) Maximum SAT doesn't just explain the answer, it explains in detail how to figure out the correct answer and more importantly, what underlying principles the questioner is trying to assess the student's understanding of. It provides not just a better understanding of each question/answer but rather a better understanding of what the SAT is trying to achieve in their testing process.
For academically serious students try to truly excel on the SAT, this is by far the best companion to the official guide that I've seen available. The people who wrote the one star reviews either didn't understand how to use the book, or have another agenda. Maybe both.
5 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Even better than the first edition... Mar 23, 2007
By J. Li
If succeeding on the SAT is largely a game -- and most educators, including this one, feel this is the case -- then MAXIMUM SAT is one of the few books out there that truly helps students take their game to the "next level".
MAXIMUM SAT'S great accomplishment is that the manual's design provides both the bottom-line fundamentals necessary to feel confident on test day, as well as the detail and nuance required to achieve a superior test score.
The revised edition is marvelously comprehensive -- getting the numbers you want is all about just doing the work!
What's also great is that the text itself is challenging and accessible -- kids won't get bored, and parents will feel confident that even the most difficult SAT concepts to teach, such as Critical Reading and Writing, are thoroughly deconstructed and reviewed.
The big test prep companies have dominated this territory for years, but they should take stock -- MAXIMUM SAT has established itself as a formidable opponent, and an excellent way to prepare for the exam.
2 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Amazing Nov 02, 2007
By V. Subramanian
This is undoubtedly the best sat prep book out there. It has easy to understand techniques that can help boost your score by at least 200 points.
See all 7 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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