Math Shortcuts to Ace the SAT* (New SAT*) and the New PSAT/NMSQT

By: Kurt Trenkmann

Book Overview

Most SAT preparation books on the market offer a review of arithmetic algebra and geometry and include general strategies with practice exams. Unlike these traditional study guides, this book is a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1882228006
• ISBN13: 9781882228003
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Achievement Publishing (NY)
• Length: 101 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

a PSAT aid

Seems to be the book that can help my daughter prepapre for her PSAT'S...she thought it would be good and has been working in it on a regular basis. Will know if it works when she takes the test in October.

Good...still has QC stuff

Great book for kids without a lot of number sense. Kids who are very good at math will probably find most of these shortcuts intuitive. It also contains an enormous amount of material on the quantitative comparisons- which have been removed from both the PSAT and the SAT.

This book is a winner!

To help my nephew prepare for the SAT, I bought several products: Math Shortcuts to Ace the SAT by Achievement Publishing, Cracking the SAT by Princeton Review, Kaplan's SAT Online training program (by far, the most expensive), and last-year's Kaplan SAT CD software. The best products by far were Cracking the SAT (Princeton Review) and Math Shortcuts to Ace the SAT. Math Shortcuts to Ace the SAT is a short, quick read of 34 tips with related examples. (By the way, don't take the title LITERALLY. You probably won't "ace" the SAT. It's a common practice to tout a book by giving it an ambitious title.)I didn't care for Kaplan's math format at all. Cracking the SAT (Princeton Review) was easier to understand and gave clearer tips to crack the hard problems, but Math Shortcuts... was easiest of all to learn. It's barely 100 pages, far less intimidating than the other books. I was able to read it and do all the examples in two evening sessions.I took a sample SAT myself and scored in the low to mid 600s in math and verbal, but I'd didn't have a clue how to solve some of the math questions. (By the way, "Cracking the SAT" (Princeton Review) explains why the harder questions are things you'll never see in high school math classes.) After reading Math Shortcuts, I retested on the last five of twenty-five questions on two sample math sections to see how I improved. As you know, the last questions are always the hardest. On these 10 hardest questions, before reading Math Shortcuts, I got 3 correct, 3 wrong, and 4 that I didn't attempt. After reading Math Shortcuts, I got 10 correct. I doubt that I could get a perfect score consistently, but the book obviously helped me. Since there are three math sections (not just two), my math score would probably have improved by over 100 points. (However, I took a lot of math in college and use it at work, so my results might not reflect that of the typical high school student.)My nephew confirmed that he liked Math Shortcuts to Ace the Sat best of all. After studying the book, he took a sample SAT and increased his math score 90 points.He found Kaplan's SAT online to be the least useful of all.In summary, I'd highly recommend Math Shortcuts to Ace the SAT by Achievement Publishing to improve SAT math scores. For verbal and overall study, I'd recommend Cracking the SAT by Princeton Review. It does a good job of explaining how and when to guess and how the SAT is scored. Its explanations of how crack analogies was clearer than Kaplan. Its grouping of common SAT vocabulary words into common categories was far superior to Kaplain's memorization approach.One final warning to parents. Don't expect your kids to do well on the SAT because they are good students. The SAT doesn't measure that. Get them some good study resources a few months before the test; otherwise, your student will be handicapped when he/she takes the SAT compared to students who have used good resources.

It is amazing

If i had to use one word to describe this book it would be "amazing." Undeniably the BEST book I have ever come across. I saw A LOT of the tricks in this book being used in Kaplan and Princeton! I LOVED IT! It raised my score over 200 points. I would definately recommend this to anyone shooting for a 750 or up....

Great Help for SAT

This is a very well understood and clearly written book. It helped me greatly for the SAT and it will definetely help you. I give it a 5 star rating. And it also has a great price tag!