SAT Prep Black Book: The Most Effective SAT Strategies Ever Published

by Mike Barrett, Patrick Barrett

This listing is for the Kindle e-book version of the SAT Prep Black Book, Second Edition. For the physical paperback version of the book, please choose the "paperback" format above. Click the "look inside" feature above to browse the SAT Prep Black Book and get a feel for how it approaches the SAT! The fully up-to-date SAT Prep Black Book, Second Edition gives you unique, effective SAT strategies from Mike Barrett, an SAT tutor with clients all over the globe who pay him hundreds of dollars an hour for phone tutoring. In addition to extensive and effective training on every aspect of the SAT, this Black Book gives you detailed, systematic, easy-to-follow walkthroughs for every question in 4 of the College Board's official SAT Practice Tests. The Black Book is a must-have in your SAT preparation, whether you need to make a perfect 1600 to be competitive at an Ivy, score a 450 in each section to claim a sports scholarship, or anything in between. You can find the first 4 Practice SAT tests from the College Board for free on the College Board’s website, or in the "Blue Book," which is the College Board's Official SAT Study Guide, 2016 Edition or 2018 Edition---both editions contain the first 4 official SAT practice tests. (The SAT Prep Black Book has no affiliation with the College Board.) The Black Book and the real practice SAT tests from the College Board are all you need to get your best possible SAT score. The Black Book is the ideal SAT book for 3 major It covers every aspect of the test with advice that actually works, making it unique in the SAT prep field. It doesn't just review material from your high school classes! Instead, you'll learn to exploit design flaws in the SAT, using its own "SAT tricks" against it. The Black Book contains 600+ detailed, systematic, easy-to-follow walkthroughs for real SAT questions from the College Board, so you know that what you're learning actually works. You'll see every question from the first 4 official SAT Practice Tests attacked in a way that clearly demonstrates the ideal thought process on the SAT. (You'll need your own copies of those real SAT practice tests, which you can get for free from the College Board’s website. You can also find them in the College Board’s 2016 or 2018 “Blue Book.”) The Black Book is a clear, concise roadmap to the SAT. (See the selected highlights below). It explains exactly how every SAT question works, and how to beat it in the least time possible. Selected Highlights from the SAT Prep Black Why the SAT isn’t designed like a high school test, and how this fact influences every aspect of the proper approach to SAT preparation… Why every SAT question can only have one valid answer, no matter how much it might seem otherwise sometimes… How to look at SAT questions the same way the College Board does when it writes them… Why it’s so important to work with real SAT questions from the College Board…and why you shouldn’t pay much attention to the College Board’s written explanations for those questions! The simple formula that allows you to crank out a top-scoring essay (that is, if you even need to take the SAT Essay in the first place)… The special grammatical rules that

Genres: Nonfiction, School, College

577 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 14, 2013

Reviews

[Steve Mcenroe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Upon seeing the glowing reviews for this book I decided to buy it, as I teach SAT/ACT to students. What a disappointment! I started reading the book and it seems more like an infomercial than an actual SAT book. The "Black book" makes it seems like it's exclusive material not found elsewhere, kind of like someone getting a Black Card from American Express.

But upon reading the book, it's not exclusive material. I have seen other gimmick companies and people try to advertise "teaching the test" where the test taker supposedly does as little as possible to prepare and miraculously does well on the actual test. Not studying vocabulary...sure that sounds great. Kind of like telling students they can get straight A's while doing no homework. But it's not practical. Even Mike Barrett himself says you can omit 4 or 5 questions and still get a 750 on a reading section, which is untrue. Check out the scoring guide on just about any SAT and if you miss even two questions you're down to a 750. Nonetheless it is a gimmick. My students do study vocabulary and there is a huge difference between my students who actually study vocabulary and the ones who do not--on test day.

Mike says not to guess even when you've eliminated choices. This is simply not true: it has been mathematically proven that guessing even when you can safely eliminate just one answer, that you know is wrong, does pay off. And if you can safely knockout more than one choice you've tilted the odds even more in your favor. It isn't even open for debate: it has been done in experiments and proven to be correct.

I read the section on reading comprehension where Mike literally says use the skimming technique, read the whole passage or use any method you want. Seriously? How is that direction? It seems that this "strategy" along with most of the strategies in the book are completely vague. In fact, it seems the author majored in vague. Then, he goes on to say eliminate the four wrong choices in a reading comp. question and if you only have three to eliminate you did something wrong. But how do I specifically eliminate the four wrong choices...that is not given. Just generic, vague info on what type answer questions are normally wrong.

Then, I wondered, after teaching in the field for a long time, why I have never heard of Mike Barrett. Notice in the book there is not one testimonial, and not one review from a book, magazine or TV station. Those are the kinds of things I normally see in SAT/ACT books that are written by real pros. Upon looking further, I noticed Mike doesn't even list an address for where his "company" is located. Yet, he wants to charge people $350/hr. to Skype with him and it is in the thousands to have him travel to you and work one-on-one. What person in right mind would pay someone they hardly know, who has never been on TV or done any major interviews, that kind of money--especially when the person has no physical address.

Mike talks about college in his blurb listed here on Amazon but why does he hide the college he went to? Would any good SAT tutor have to do that? It looks like he went to University of Florida, which is an good school but not great, and certainly not the kind of school you would expect a self-proclaimed testing genius to go to. You would expect he would've gone to any Ivy League or similar college on full-scholarship.

Also, I saw Mike had a previous book called Grammatix, found on the Internet. Upon looking over that it seems this book is just a recycling of that book, and in many parts it is simply a cut-and-paste job from Grammatix.

In short, the whole thing is a huge scam. There are no great tricks or techniques here, the few clear suggestions he makes (not studying vocab, not guessing) have been proven to be wrong, and the author himself is a nobody in the industry--despite claiming to be a renowned expert! I remember the old infomercial where, I believe it was Don Lapre, mentioned how he made more money in one week working out of a 1BR apartment than most people made in a year. Yet Don was carted off to "Club Fed," eventually and exposed for the fraud he was. It kind of reminds me of the strategies in this book. However instead of selling Ginzu knives, or fast-buck real estate tips, Mike Barrett is selling bogus SAT tips and generic, vague and worthless information.

[Avery Hughes]

Just failed my sat 😍😍

[Judah Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this to be very practical and straightforward. I’d definitely recommend.

[sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I’d found this sooner. Unique yet efficient read, unlike a typical SAT prep book. Highly recommend!

[Kimberlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from Goodreads first reads giveaway, and I am so pleased that I did. With my son starting high school this year, this book will be insurmountable in helping him prepare for his SATs. I read through it last night and am so impressed! My son was even excited about this book. Thank you Mike Barrett for writing such a helpful book!

[Ghost Ryter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely helpful resource! Anyone studying for the SAT should definitely give this book a look.

[isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book, such beautiful and detailed writing. also really enjoyed this novel from an educational standpoint, surprisingly eye-opening. definitely would recommend 10/10 wonderful wonderful book

[Oliver Pflaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book single-handily got me from a 1370 to a 1570. I cannot recommend more.

The reason why I'm taking time out of my day to write this review is because I was thinking about the choice I've made that led me to getting accepted to my top choice of Columbia. Then I remembered this book. Obviously you need to put work into it. But I can say for a fact if you follow the thought-process of this book, it will help A LOT. I think without this book I wouldn't have been able to increase my score as much as I did, and then all the work I put into other areas of my application would have been for nothing. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this book got me into Columbia. It might not even be an exaggeration to say that it completely changed my life. We will see about that though. It depends on what kind of impact college will have on my life. Maybe I'll report back in 10 years and let y'all know.

[Kelly Croke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A greatly established work of literature. A perfect light read to kill time at work, relax at home, or for bed time stories to your little ones.

[Auren Squires · Rating 4 out of 5]

ofc adding to my reading goal

[Lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can i count this for my reading challenge? SURE THANG

[Aanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

i’m bad at sat but whatever this book helped a lot ig

[Brooke S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took a while to read but I'm glad that I read it. It is full of great test strategies that I have used in practice tests and that I believe will help me succeed on test day. I will likely re-read parts of the book just to refresh my memory closer to the test because it is so long but I have been reading it all summer so it is very easy to space out. One thing I loved about this book was that it was written informally, like you were in a classroom and the author was talking directly to you. There weren't any specific quotes that stood out to me except for the fact that the author often reminds the reader that it is okay if you don't get it at first glance because there is always a way to practice. I highly recommend this for studying for the SAT.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for those who are struggling with the reading section in the SAT. From past tests, I can say that my weakness was in the reading portion. I was never really good at reading and analyzing the passages. However, this book brought me through great and very effective strategies in order to obtain a 800 on the SAT. Although my test is in a few weeks, I can say that I am now very confident in the reading section of the SAT!

[Sriram]

This book is the best SAT prep book I have ever seen.


This thing beats Kaplan and Princeton Review books by a landslide. It has actual walkthroughs that are in detail, unlike Kaplan and Princeton.

I found this book 5 days before my PSAT 8. Before I found this book, I struggled in the reading part and grammar a lot, while getting perfects in the math section, usually only getting 600s. I was, at that time, an untrained test taker, who didn't know what materials to use, and just eyeballed the questions and sometimes guessed the choice that sounded right to me, instead of actually reading the contest. Then I found this book, which had all the secrets (even why college board makes the PSAT/SAT like this) to the test.

And then today I took the PSAT 8, and guess what? I am actually confident that I scored a perfect on the EBRW (Evidence Based Reading and Writing (aka. sections 1 and 2)) sections!

My favorite part is the 25-page grammar toolbox. The last time I brushed up on my grammar was around 3rd grade, so this was a really good review. I bet even a person learning English as their second language would understand this. It started from the basic definitions.

Overall, if you want to score a perfect, you need to get this book. The Kaplan or other prep books won't make the cut. They don't have the actual techniques or even this detailed walkthroughs. (Sure they have this thing called the "Kaplan method for Reading questions", but that thing basically just tells you to take notes, which isn't a good idea as stated in the black book). I am amazed by the quality of this book, and will also plan to get the ACT Black Book when I plan to take the test.

Thanks authors for spending your time on this masterpiece!

[Renessa Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally read this as a recommendation online for good prep books. I was a little alarmed with the print of the book since the margins (on the outside edge of the book) are incredibly small which I don't personally enjoy, and the font was a Serif font (which I enjoy, but due to the small size of the text, it was hard to read).

Aesthetics aside, I enjoyed this book a lot. It was straightforward and blunt (almost tough-love-y) but explained concepts well. If you know a lot about the SAT already, it's fairly easy to skip around the book, though I wasn't a fan of how the information was organized.

This book, pretty obviously, is for the SAT. If you're looking for a good practice book, I do recommend this one (I've only read the Princeton Review book, which wasn't nearly as good as this one in my opinion). However, if you've studied for the SAT with 5 other practice books, this book may not do much for you since it tends to state the obvious.

[Zahraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've just been introduced to the SAT this will definitely guide you, but if you already have some background and want to improve, this will help you slightly. The reading section was really insightful, but the math and reading just seemed like something that you'd need to practice to get better instead of using the tips given.

[P]

Used this book and I was able to score a 1550. It works well if you're willing to put the effort in to follow it! It's also easy to read and to understand - it saves your reading comprehension for the SAT passages :)

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brought me from a 1240 to a 1350. Still working on the score with the strategies. Fingers crossed 🤞🤞

[Audrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

worst book i've ever read

[s · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book hurt worse than Collen Hoover

[Sai · Rating 1 out of 5]

ugh

[Nathan Ly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book acc helped alot with my sats but my score was kinda flopping

[Kelli]

This book, along with a surprise extra book (the College Board Blue Book), arrived today (4/9/13). I've glanced through it and am encouraged by what I've seen so far. My son and I will go through these books over the next few weeks, after which I will post a full review of how well I think this book helped my son prepare for the SAT.

[Mona Major]

I was really excited that I won this book.

I was bummed however, when the postman brought it, there was nearly $20.00 due in postage on it. I didn't accept the package so out of fairness, I won't rate a book based on anything other than the content, which I have not read.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway.

I was disappointed at the $12 I was required to pay for this book upon arrival, however the information within these pages will surely help students I will be tutoring.

[Abhijeet Saha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice book for preparing for SAT. Contains many tricks for saving time. Having it under your belt can be a huge benefit. Most importantly, the book tries to explain you the whole purpose and concept of SAT. The language is also very simple to understand.

[Bookdragon94 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Won this as a first read and was thrilled to see that they sent it will the College Blue Book! This will be very beneficial to help with taking the SAT!

[Shruti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rate it 4 stars not because I loved it, but because it was pretty helpful prep for my SATs.

[TheObsessiveCupcake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Barrett is my new best friend! This book helped me so much in studying for the SAT. Now I just have to wait for my scores! So now go and read.