Gruber's Complete SAT Guide

Now in its fifteenth edition, Gruber's Complete SAT Guide is written by Dr. Gary Gruber, considered by many to be the foremost expert on the SAT and test prep. What makes Gruber's Complete SAT Guide different from other SAT test prep books it the inclusion of so called "Gruber strategies" that attempt to teach students methods for approaching questions and finding the answer rather than teaching facts and answers by memorization or repetition.

Gruber's method involves picking apart a question or problem on the SAT test instead of trying to teach test-takers how to answer each question individually. According to Gruber, you can use his method on any kind of standardized test and on every version of the SAT and SAT Subject Tests.

According to the promotional material accompanying Gruber's Complete SAT Guide, more schools nationwide use Dr. Gruber's books for SAT prep courses than any other SAT preparation books, including those published by The College Board and The Princeton Review.

Dr. Gruber was chosen to train teachers on a national scale to instruct teacher sin how to improve student's SAT scores. Several national test prep schools, state agencies like the California Department of Education, and even test prep centers worldwide have exclusive contracts with Dr. Gary Gruber to improve student's SAT performance and critical thinking ability. With all of these accolades, adding Gruber's Complete SAT Guide to your SAT prep routine is a good idea.

More About Gruber's Complete SAT Guide

This book contains five complete SAT practice tests. Though these are not actual SAT tests from years past, like you'd find in official guides to SAT prep, the questions contained in them are the same as those found on actual SAT tests. Gruber's includes its own vocabulary training system with a review guide, Dr. Gruber's advice on the essay portion of the SAT, and review material for Writing, Vocabulary, Math, and Critical Reading sections of the SAT.

Gruber's also contains the usual "critical thinking skills" advice in the first two chapters of the book. This is the same old information that every SAT and test prep book contains, though if you haven't read this type of thing before, there's some good test prep advice to be read.

Pros and Cons of Gruber's Complete SAT Guide

The best-reviewed section of Gruber's book is on Mathematics. The toughest part of the SAT Math section is algebra and geometry, probably because many students have completed their algebra and geometry education a few years before they take their SAT exam. More students get hung up on SAT questions about functions and probability, and Dr. Gruber offers special advice on these difficult math concepts. Gruber's Complete SAT Guide contains eight chapters on math and math review, with each of those eight chapters paired with fifty test questions on the specific topics tackled in each chapter. That's a total of 400 review questions on every math topic the SAT covers.

Critical Reading, the most difficult section overall according to SAT score charts, Gruber's Complete contains a list of the 3,400 most frequently seen SAT vocabulary words, with page after page of vocabulary review questions. Gruber's gives a word and asks you to pick a synonym from five different choices. Where Gruber's exceeds The College Board's own Critical Reading material is in the reading passages themselves--Gruber's Complete SAT Guide offers more difficult reading passages so that you are over-prepared when it comes time to take the real SAT.

Like most SAT prep books, the section offering advice and review on Writing is the weakest part of the book. There's the usual review of grammar rules that you'd find in any test prep book, and a series of practice questions with answers that are not explained as well as they could be.

Gruber's Complete SAT Guide is a good study aid to the more traditional College Board or Princeton Review SAT prep books, but is probably not sufficient to use as your only SAT prep guide. Gruber's doesn't contain enough practice material, though it does over train students, offering harder questions and reading passages than you'll actually find on the SAT. That way, when you sit down for the real test, you'll be surprised at how easy the real thing is compared to Dr. Gruber's practice version.