GRE preparation books

GRE EXAM BOOKS

Kaplan SSAT & ISEE 2009 Edition: For Private and Independent School Admissions

List Price: ~~$19.00~~
www.amazon.com's Price: $19.00
Condition: New
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Lowest Used Price: $5.38

Practice test not accurate

Gave the lower level practice test to my 5th grade daughter. I should of checked the questions, especially the reading comprehension first. Turns out that the questions were inaccurate as far as authentic ssat questions go. I compared them to the official [...] test and the Kaplan questions turned out to be too hard for lower level. My daughter was in tears. Will not buy Kaplan material anymore.

One of the best, especially for math; still has some weaknesses.

I am a tutor, and I've worked with this book for years. The SSAT and the ISEE both have official guides to the test (which are only available on their own websites, as far as I'm aware), and those are valuable, but contain little in the way of test-taking strategy and in-depth question & answer analysis. For that, you need a third-party test prep book.

I generally recommend this book for SSAT/ISEE test-takers who need extra practice with math. Kaplan isn't quite as good with verbal practice as the Princeton Review book is (though it's still adequate), but they have far more math practice problems, and their chapters contain a lot of good math strategies.

In fact, nearly every strategy in this book is based on an algorithm. Even the "bridge"-based analogies strategy involves following a sequence of steps for every problem. There are a lot of students for whom that works very well.

I'm giving the book 4 stars instead of 5 because, as I said, the book doesn't do quite as well at verbal practice as the Princeton Review. But it does some things better. If they ever pair up and co-publish one book, *that* will be the perfect ISEE/SSAT prep book.

But until then, I'll keep recommending that most of my students buy both books.

Good Resource

My son's school offers an SSAT review course and specifically recommended this book.
It seems to offer a very good review for the high school entrance exam.

An okay prep guide for the SSAT

My daughter bought this guide and the Princeton Review's guide when she had only a month to prepare for the SSAT. She found Kaplan's practice tests useful for diagnosing areas she needed to focus on (particularly in math) but after trying both guides, she decided that she liked the PR much better both for it's explanations and links to real world results (Having an even rough approximation of how you will do on the real test is better than no feedback at all). It may be that Kaplan is equal to or even better than PR for ISEE prep. We only had time to do the SSAT portions.

Product Description

Features:

6 full-length practice tests: 3 SSATs and 3 ISEEs, tailored to upper, middle, and lower levels
Detailed answer explanations
Hundreds of practice questions covering the most frequently tested material
Intensive, test-specific Math and Verbal workouts
Customized review sections for important subject areas, including Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics, Reading Comprehension, and Writing
Practical tips for every question type
Powerful test-taking strategies to help you score higher

Similar Products:

Cracking the SSAT & ISEE, 2009 Edition (Private Test Preparation)
Ace's SSAT/ISEE Exambusters Study Cards (Ace's Exambusters Study Cards)
McGraw-Hill's SSAT/ISEE, Secondary School Admission Test / Independent School Entrance Exam
Cracking the SSAT & ISEE, 2010 Edition (Private Test Preparation)
Master The SSAT* & ISEE**: Prep for Students and Parents (Master the Ssat and Isee)

If you know a good book and you would like to see it here, please let us know!

Submit a book!

Idea:

if you have already successfully passed your test, you can sell used GRE prep books at eBay!

SAT Test Books