The SAT Official Study Guide (Second edition) – Is it really worth it?
Recently collegeboard released the new version of Official SAT Study Guide (2nd Edition – Jul 21st 2009) which has 10 practice tests. This new guide replaces the older revision – The Official SAT Study Guide by The College Board (Paperback – Oct 7, 2004) which has 8 practice tests.
On close examination of the content in new guide, you will find that the last seven tests in both books are exactly same. The test mapping starts from the 4th practice test (in revision 2) onward. The full mapping is as follows.
Second Revision test –> First revision Test
Test # 4 => Test # 2
Test # 5 => Test # 3
Test # 6 => Test # 4
Test # 7 => Test # 5
Test # 8 => Test # 6
Test # 9 => Test # 7
Test # 10 => Test # 8
Another interesting change is how SAT categorizes the difficulty level of the questions for new tests. In the three new tests (test # 1, 2, and 3) of second revision, the difficulty level is on the scale of 1 to 5 (1 being easy and 5 being difficult). All other tests (#4 to 10 in second revision) the difficulty level is categorized as Easy, Med, Hard. I am not sure why won’t they make it consistent across all tests.
If you already have an old copy (revision 1), you can certainly use that. If you don’t have any old revision, it will be a worth while investment to buy the new book, even if you are registered for some professional tutoring help.
By the way, mistakes happen during publishing, even when you are publishing your flagship product (SAT prep guide). Collegeboard has already come out with an (https://satonlinecourse.collegeboard.com/SR/home/bookOwnerArea.do?fromSecondEdition=yes)
for The Official SAT Study Guide: Second Edition.
They will tell you about that only after you have purchased the book and registered on their website. You will have to dig deeper on collegeboard website to get access to Errata link. There are updates in following areas:
– Answers
– Difficulty level for questions
– Questions content has changed
– The score conversion tables for number of tests
Fortunately collegeboard do not have to send “their score” any place regarding these errors. If you know of any other changes let us know.
Were some of the reading sections from edition 1 changed in the second edition?
Subject: Errata for 2004 Edition of The Official SAT Guide
Hello,
Actually, I have a question.
I am a tutor in Hong Kong. I occasionally have SAT students.
I already have the second edition errata.
Is there an errata page for the 2004 edition of the guide?
Thanks,
Freeman
Hello Freeman,
I am not aware of errata on that book. I am sure that must be one… but I have not tried to get access to that.
Majority of our customer and users have already migrated to the new edition.
Best,
-Raju
hi, i’ve recently been given the first edition of the SAT study guide , but unsure whether i should get the 2nd version, is there a real difference between the 2nd and the first edition?