Is it me, or am I one of the lucky ones?
Written: Nov 13 '01 (Updated Nov 13 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent math techniques; unlike everyone else, this improved my verbal score
Cons: Very expensive!
The Bottom Line: The Princeton Review is only good if you follow the techniques!
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| cripper's Full Review: Princeton Review SAT I Course |
Being a typical 17 year old teenager, I am faced with the same daily dilemmas all 17 year olds encounter. No, it's not puberty (where did you come with that, Chris?!). And no, it's not learning how to drive (hell, I'm still not allowed to learn how to drive in Hong Kong!). It's that period in life no one wants to deal with. It's the college/university application process.
Now at the school I go to, there are 4 different "college/university" destinations: the U.K., Australia, Hong Kong and the U.S. U.K., Australia and Hong Kong applications largely depend on the A-level grades you get in Year 13 (yep, the British schooling system consists of 13 years, compared to 12 in the U.S.). The U.S., on the other hand, depend on many different factors.
One of these factors is the SAT, or the Scholastic Assessment Test.
This is basically a test that tests your test taking skills and also your verbal and mathematical knowledge. I took this test and did not do well on it. How was I going to improve my current test score?
That was when my older brother recommended me to take The Princeton Review SAT I Course. Though I was a bit skeptical of the price of this course, I was determined that if I wanted to improve my SAT score, I had to take this course (I also heard about the Kaplan SAT Course, and although it's cheaper, my friends advised me against it).
The Princeton Review SAT I Course is spread over a month, and like school, classes take place during the week and each class lasts for 2 hours. In between these classes are 4 diagnostic SAT tests, which are scattered in between the 14 session course, one at the very beginning, one at the very end and two in between.
Anyhow, my experience with the Princeton Review started off with me looking for the darn place! In Hong Kong, the Princeton Review is in some huge building and it's hard to find in the building, and it took me a good 15 minutes to find the place!
When I finally got there, I did my first diagnostic test, knowing very little on the test-taking techniques. I have to say I scored pretty low on that test, and that's where the teacher comes in to help imrpove your test taking techniques.
The teacher (in my case, a college student from Pomona College; he was actually good, compared to the teachers some of my other friends had) gave us the two official Princeton Review books, Verbal Manual for the SAT and Math Manual for the SAT, and started teaching everything out of the book. He focused on the verbal aspect of the test, since the people in my "Review" class scored low on that section of the test. We concentrated so much on this aspect of the test, that the marks for verbal went up in the next test, while the math went down a notch.
So, before the next diagnostic test, my teacher started teaching math techniques. After concentrating on the maths aspect, our test scores were balanced between verbal and maths, with math being the higher score.
With not much left to teach from the book, my teacher gave everyone a copy of 10 Real SATs, where we did a few timed sections, and was vital in boosting my score up even more from the last diagnostic and my test score was a lot higher than it was when I first took it.
My teacher emphasized the importance of using the techniques, but his number one technique was simply to RTFQ (read the f***ing question), a technique that does not appear in the Princeton Review books.
My teacher also kept checking if we did use techniques during the test, and I have to say those who did use techniques did get better scores.
Not only that, he also gave our class many vocabulary tests, something which I think was somewhat vital to the 100 point increase in my verbal score. It should also be noted that my teacher emphasized the importance of reading all the time.
A few of the more important "Princeton Review" test taking techniques (according to my teacher) included POE (process of elimination) and the Joe Bloggs method. The test taking technique for math questions, analogies and critical reading were particularly straightforward, and saved me a lot of time when I actually did the test.
I am a bit dubious about the sentence completion technique though. This is time consuming and is not very good when in a test situation.
However, after you take the course, it is VITAL that you continue practising test taking techniques before your real SAT. If you don't, you'll completely lose your test taking mentality, and will not do so well in the test. Many people do not bother revising test taking techniques after the SAT, and people get upset that their scores do not get any higher, and say that the Princeton Review course is trash. That is mainly because these people do not revise after learning these techniques and that they probably never implement them when taking the test. To utilize this course, you must carry on practising these techniques by using SAT practice books (particularly 10 Real SATs), which can be found at any local bookstore. I was fortunate I did, because I got my best score through revising the techniques over and over again.
This course, however, is extremely expensive. Here in Hong Kong, it cost HK$8500 (more than US$1000!), too expensive for a test taking technique course that lasts for less than 20 days!
Despite that, I think the Princeton Review SAT I Course is essential for anyone going to study in the U.S., and intend on taking the SAT.
Thanks for reading the review and I hope you enjoyed it.
Recommended:
Yes
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cripper
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Member: Chris Ying
Location: Sydney, Australia
Reviews written: 348
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