The SAT is not a test of aptitude, how good of a person you are, or how successful you will be in life. The SAT simply tests how well you take the SAT. And performing well on the SAT is a skill, one that can be learned like any other. The Princeton Review was founded more than 35 years ago on this very simple idea, and—as our students’ test scores show—our approach is the one that works.

Sure, you want to do well on the SAT, but you don’t need to let the test intimidate you. As you prepare, remember two important things about the SAT:

• It doesn’t measure the stuff that matters. It measures neither intelligence nor the depth and breadth of what you’re learning in high school. It doesn’t predict college grades as well as your high school grades do. Colleges know there is more to you as a student—and as a person—than what you do in a single 3-hour test administered on a random Saturday morning.

• It underpredicts the college performance of women, minorities, and disadvantaged students. Historically, women have done better than men in college but worse on the SAT. For a test that is used to help predict performance in college, that’s a pretty poor record.

Your preparation for the SAT starts here. We at The Princeton Review spend millions of dollars every year improving our methods and materials so that students are always ready for the SAT, and we’ll get you ready too.

However, there is no magic pill: just buying this book isn’t going to improve your scores. Solid score improvement takes commitment and effort from you. If you read this book carefully and work through the problems and practice tests included in the book, not only will you be well-versed in the format of the SAT and the concepts it tests, you will also have a sound overall strategy and a powerful arsenal of test-taking strategies that you can apply to whatever you encounter on test day.

In addition to the comprehensive review in SAT Prep, we’ve included additional practice online, accessible through our website—PrincetonReview.com—to make it even more efficient at helping you to improve your scores. Before doing anything else, be sure to register your book at PrincetonReview.com/prep. When you do, you’ll gain access to the most up-to-date information on the SAT, as well as more SAT and college admissions resources.

The more you take advantage of the resources we’ve included in this book and the online student tools that go with it, the better you’ll do on the test. Read the book carefully and learn our strategies. Take the full-length practice tests under actual timed conditions. Analyze your performance and focus your efforts where you need improvement. Perhaps even study with a friend to stay motivated. Attend a free event at The Princeton Review to learn more about the SAT and how it is used in the college admissions process. Search our website for an event that will take place near you or take place online!

This test is challenging, but you’re on the right track. We’ll be with you all the way.

Good luck!

The Staff of The Princeton Review

LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

You are about to unlock a vast repertoire of powerful strategies that have one and only one purpose: to help you get a better score on the SAT. This book contains the collected wisdom of The Princeton Review, which has spent more than 35 years helping students achieve higher scores on standardized tests. We’ve devoted millions of dollars and years of our lives to beating the SAT. It’s what we do (twisted as it may be), and we want you to benefit from our expertise.

WHAT IS THE PRINCETON REVIEW?

The Princeton Review is the leader in test prep. Our goal is to help students everywhere crack the SAT and a bunch of other standardized tests, including the PSAT and ACT as well as graduate-level exams like the GRE and GMAT. Starting from humble beginnings in 1981, The Princeton Review is now the nation’s largest SAT preparation company. We offer courses in more than 500 locations in 20 different countries, as well as online; we also publish best-selling books, like the one you’re holding, and online resources to get students ready for this test.

Our techniques work. We developed them after spending countless hours scrutinizing real SATs, analyzing them with computers, and proving our theories in the classroom.

The Princeton Review Way

This book will show you how to score higher on the SAT by teaching you to:

• extract important information from tricky test questions

• take full advantage of the limited time allowed

• systematically answer questions—even if you don’t fully understand them

• avoid the traps that the SAT has laid for you (and use those traps to your advantage)

The test is written and administered by the College Board, and they know that our techniques work. For years, the test-writers claimed that the SAT couldn’t be coached. But we’ve proven that view wrong, and they in turn have struggled to find ways of changing the SAT so that The Princeton Review won’t be able to crack it—in effect, acknowledging what our students have known all along: that our techniques really do work. (In fact, the College Board has recently admitted that students can and should prepare for the SAT. So there!) The SAT has remained highly vulnerable to our techniques. And the current version of the SAT is even more susceptible to our methods. Read this book, work through the drills, take the practice tests, and you’ll see what we mean.