Real SAT Subject Tests

It's mind boggling that the College Board has published multiple editions of basically the same exact book over the span of umpteen years. The CB just removed "II" after the word "SAT" a while ago. Does not ETS rake in enough money to develop new tests and release a bunch of old ones for high school students who are striving to raise their scores to the ever growing competitive levels? A tiny handful of few Subjects Tests did appear a couple of years ago - that's all. The CB sells ($18 a piece!) copies of the January, May, and October SAT I (Reasoning) Tests to students who took those tests; no such thing with the SAT II (Subject) tests - ever! This diatribe out of the way, I need to stress that no matter how hard prep companies try (or pretend to try) emulating the CB SAT tests, their attempts don't produce practice tests realistic enough to approximate the real SAT tests. I have the right to judge because I have not only been teaching [privately] the SAT prep courses for a long time, but also have been taking the tests every year - both SAT I and SAT II. And to boot, I have an impressive number of students' successes under my belt. To drive my point home, only the CB publications can give you the real taste of the real SAT tests. `The Real SAT Subject Tests` can't be overestimated - it has no rivals in terms of authenticity.

The book delivers what it promises: real SAT II tests that have been administered in recent years. Real SAT II: Subject Tests is great as a score predictor for the actual exams. The brief review for each subject included is trivial, so I would highly recommend using a study book specialized for the particular subject(s) you are taking in conjunction with this book. The price is a bit steep for only one test per subject, but I believe it is worth it, especially if you plan on taking multiple SAT IIs.Note: A full SAT II Biology E/M exam is now included along with the book. It comes shrinkwrapped with the actual book.

This book does what it says: it gives you one complete REAL SAT II test on every single subject EXCEPT Biology and Korean. Since many people take the Bio E/M test these days, this book is marred by the fact that it doesn't have a complete Bio E/M test (only half and not "REAL") and they seem to be easier than the actual test I took. But otherwise, on all the other subjects, this book gives you a test that was actually used before. Plus, it gives you the scales for the particular tests, answers and difficulty of the question (no explanations though).If you are buying this book for the language SAT II's with listening, you can get the tapes for free by sending the attached postcard to College Board. You should get it because the price you paid for the book includes the tapes and if you don't have the tapes you can't do the listening tests. Request beforehand since they take a few weeks to ship.These book gives you the confirmation of whether you know the stuff or not after you finish your study program. From then on you can work on your weak spots or sit back and relax as you've done well on the practice (don't get too cocky though =) as the SAT 2 tests change slowly but gradually over time, and so the practice might be considerably different from the one you actually take).Take this from someone who's got 800 on two SAT 2 tests, and 790, 770, 740, 730, and 700 on 5 others.Oh and one more thing: before each test, there's a brief description with an outline of the topics tested and several sample questions of each question type for the specific subject. For the writing test, there is a sample topic and 6 essays with the 6 different scores on that topic (this topic is NOT the one on the REAL test--so you get 2 topics in the book for practice!)

This book is excellent. I wouldn't use it until you have reviewed completely though since there is only one test per subject. Thanks to this wonderful book, I received a 70 pt increase on my Biology SAT II and an 800 on the SAT II World History. However, I found out that preparation for the SAT II: Bio E/M is not a good reason to buy. There is only a small mini-test, as with the Korean. Prep for other tests is great and writing has two tests.

This is not the book you should use until your final review session.For practicing purpose try to use a reviewing material that covers your topics specifically since Real SAT II has only one exam for every topic.But later on this book will be very useful for you to have a good feel of that the _real_ exams are like. Then you can iron out whatever weak spots you have.