Admissions Books

I bought this book and took the test but it wasnt what the book said. I found out that the test changed but the book didn't.

I used that book and I go a hundred percent on everything

Great book, guys. I aced the test

Let's set the record straight with this test prep guide for the HSPT/COOP - It is, by far, the most comprehensive HSPT/COOP preparation guide out there. I own a test preparation and tutoring company and I have seen all the major guide books out there for these exams. This is the book I use. And I'm not even a big Barron's fan - I don't touch their books for the SAT, or any AP exams. But for the HSPT, this is the one to go with. It has an absolutely ridiculous amount of exercises and practice questions dealing with every potential topic you may come across on these exams. You could work in this book for a year and not run out of material. It's almost disturbing considering it's a test guide for 8th graders. Sure there are typos and the layout is horrible, but the actual material, not to mention how closely it resembles the actual exams, is unparalleled.

My 13 year old son used this book to prepare for the COOP exam. The plus side to this book is it has "diagnostic" tests so you can quickly identify strengths and weaknesses and then zero in on the chapters needed to improve your grade. There is a ton of practice questions and hundreds of mini exams on each subject covered on the test. The book also includes 2 full practice COOP as well as 2 full practice HSPT exams. The book however, is ruined by very poor explanations on exam answers and no explanation at all on practice answers. The worst part is the answer key on many of the tests appear on the very same page as the last few quesions, so in other words, it's nearly impossible to take the tests (especially the diagnostics) without seeing the answers. Finally, the book contains at least 10 errors that I found and there might be more that I didn't realize. I would expect better from a name like Barron's. Great idea, poorly developed book :(

This book helped me prepare for the Coop And HSPT. This book explains step by step how to find anwsers to the problems. I really do reccomend this book!

So happy to see that a book like this is out! I am currently using this book as a tool to help my nephew through the process of applying to a private high school. It is very helpful and he has an opportunity to be more involved in the application process. Plus, as a middle school teacher, I have decided to use this book with my students this year to help them organize and successfully apply to high school. I reccommend this for both parents and children as well as a resource for the classroom!

I was expecting a book that would help guide us through the admissions process; instead I bought what is primarily a worksheet for kids who are applying. There are over 50 blank pages for the reader to fill in, and the advice pages, although helpful, are very elementary, and written in a huge font, so a page of information is acutally about a paragraph's worth. This book could have easily been 10 pages long instead of 100. I would guess that this book is something an educational consultant hands out to their paying clients to use along with the counseling. The book is well-organized and the information is accurate, it's just mistitled. It should be titled "I'm Going to High School -- A Worksheet for the Private High School Admissions Process"

this publication is an indespensible guide to helping parents focus on the high school years that provide the foundation for college choices based on the interest of their children. It offers a step by step 'checklist' for helping to determine your childs interest, methods for applying to high schools as well as information for obtaining financial aid for private high schools. If your childs future is important to you, this reference book is worth the couple of bucks!

I'm only a quarter of the way through this book, but I can already tell you that it's a quality review tool. It's detailed enough to give you all the information you'll need to know for the exam, yet concise enough to articulate the information quickly and efficiently. My favorite part about his book is the DAT synopses, which sums the most important information up in a box, and the Kaplan Exclusives, which help you remember certain facts and principles easily.

I'm taking an MCAT course this summer b/c I'm taking the MCAT and DAT. I'm studying science through my MCAT course, so I bought this book for PAT, math, and reading comp review. I also bought Barron's. Compared to Barron's the PAT and reading comp section are VERY skimpy. In Kaplan, the PAT questions seem too easy and they barely offer any tips on how to tackle them. I didn't have a strong grasp on PAT after reading it. The reading comp section is merely a practice reading comp test (how am I supposed to do well on it if they don't offer any strategy beforehand?). Barron's has a very comprehensive PAT section, which I highly recommend, and the reading section at least has some advice. I haven't taken a good look at the science sections yet, but Kaplan seems stronger in science than Barron's and it definitely has a bigger math section.

The main reason why I bought Kaplan is because it has a practice computer test, which is crucial for getting used to computer-based testing, and it's the most updated DAT study material available. I will also be purchasing the TopScore tests, which also just came out with a 2008 version for extra practice. In a nutshell, I wouldn't study for the DAT from the Kaplan book alone, but it seems like a good study guide overall.

This book is pretty good but its a little too broad. The ideas are unorganized and often it doesn't explain them very well. Other than that I still benefited from it. The most useful thing for the DAT that I found out was the Exam Krackers books that are designed for the MCAT.

This book is an important tool for anyone serious about doing well on the MCAT exam. Going into the test with no idea of format and question styles is not smart...These practice exams are very helpful in both this aspect and aleviating test anxiety because you can essentially view the real test as just another practice one out of the book.

I did not receive it on time even though i paid extra, btw total of charges should be shown before a person buys the item, i would have chose regular mailing if i knew how much extra 3 day mailing costs !
But book is in perfect shape : )

After taking the MCAT CBT, these practice tests were not reflective of the real test. I would NOT recommend it to anyone. It is more useful to buy the AAMC online practice exams.

I have received several inquiries about this product, since I'm the author of the Flip Flop Spanish series. I'm not at all related to the Kaplan series. But I wanted to get it, so I would be familiar with Flip O Matic to best answer questions I'm receiving. I agree with another review - these are NOT flash cards. It's more just a little perfect bound book, that has great bite-size information on each page. You can't flip it all the way back without breaking the spine, but they do have a little triangle in the corners to dog-ear the pages you have conquered.

However, for study, flash cards are useful so that you can divide up the words you know and you don't know. With this book, you don't see your stack of words getting smaller, and you can't put the ones you need to study on the bathroom mirror. For reference, the information is great - very nicely laid-out. But as a study tool, I would pass.
Sra. Gose
Spanish Teacher and Author of Spanish Fun Activity Calendar & Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 1

Although the information and the format is quite good, shoppers should realize that this is not flash cards -- at least not like I knew them while I was studying languages. A flash card is something individual that you pick up. What I was expecting was small cards one could reorganize and carry in a shirt pocket while traveling on the bus or metro. This is a BOOK! Kaplan ought know what a flash card is.

I was really disappointed.

While taking Spanish classes, the lessons have been turning toward conversational Spanish. My BIGGEST weakness in Spanish conversation is that I don't know enough words to converse in Spanish. I purchased the Flip-O-Matic cards to help build my Spanish vocabulary.

I like using flashcards to learn. When I was in grade school, I used flashcards to learn math. You can find similar Spanish flashcards on the Internet, but the Flip-O-Matic is more convenient and bound so no loose papers to lose. The Flip-O-Matic is also small enough to use anywhere, e.g., on the bus or walking around the park.

The Flip-O-Matic has 360 frequently used words and verbs. The words are shown used in a sentence. Only the most common definition of the word is given.

The only real downside that I've found is that I have to consult my Spanish dictionary (I use the Velazquez Spanish English Dictionary) to know how to pronounce the word. It would have been nice if the book had included a pronunciation guide. I ended up writing in the pronunciation in the book.

I imagine that most students buy this book with the hope that it will get them in to the more difficult schools. It probably won't. There's no one trick or one strategy that will, so that's really not a criticism.
This book will help the student who has already put signiificant effort into getting into law school. There are some pretty good tips, and definitely a good sense of what not to do, in the first section.
The essays are a little trickier to work with. You don't want to only focus on one brilliant essay (which is the girl who went to Harvard, if you're wondering), and you don't want to just skim through all of them. I thought it was helpful to go through the book with a pencil and just underline some of the sentences or ideas I liked. It's also helpful to choose some of the essays you liked generally and figure out why they were so good.
Will this book help the 150 LSAT get into Yale? No. Will this book help the 172 who needs a little something more to get into Harvard? Maybe. Other reviewers are right though, not all of the essays are amazing. Some you almost wonder how they got included (Coincidence that so many of the authors taught for Princetonreview?). Just work through the okay ones and find the gems. But don't copy.

Some of these essays are good, while others are unoriginal and dated.

For a better value, check out "Ivy League Admission: 160 Successful Law School Personal Statements." You can't go wrong.

This book is divided up into two (or three, if you count the Games bonus section) sections. If you have been reading law school admissions books, the first will tell you ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING NEW. It is general advice about drafting a personal statement and some questions and answers from admissions officers. If you haven't been reading law school admissions books and you just want some personal statement advice, I imagine it would be very enlightening. It wasn't anything new to me.

The second section is essays, and I found them extremely useful. I found looking at other personal statements and analyzing what worked and what didn't work in them was VERY helpful in helping me draft my own. The point is not to mimic any of them, of course, but to develop a sense of the range of what is effective and ineffective. Some of the "differences" the essays in this book show aren't positive: at least one of them seems to be an instance of an otherwise excellent candidate arguing himself OUT of law schools where he should have been competitive by trying a tactic that seems to have backfired.

The personal statement is really your only chance in the application process to make yourself stand out as more than just a score and a GPA, so it's in your best interest to do whatever is honorably in your power to make it excellent. I found that mine (which I spent considerable time on) was key in my admissions success, so really, if you even think it will help--GET THIS BOOK.

As for the "games" section, I didn't so much as glance at it before I handed the book off to a friend who will be applying to law school next year.

great for studying......better than kaplan.......
many explanation. very step by step and thorough

I bought this after I threw out my Kaplan's comprehensive guide. This one was much better. The explanations and advice were helpful and easily understood. It deserves 4 stars. I put 2 stars by mistake

I love the layout and organization of the book. The look and feel is similar to that of the real LSAT. The questions are well crafted and strategies are pretty helpful though some questions are easier than those on the LSAT.

if u take the LSAT and you get confused, it would realy help you during your study for LSAT.

This book is a supplement to "The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests". It provides explanations for the answers to the test.

It is an improvement over the previous "LSAT Answers" book by GetPrepped. The answers in "Explained" are laid out in a more visually pleasing way than before (it used to be an unformatted paragraph of info). The explanations are decent for LR and RC, but the way they deal with AR doesn't fit with my methods and some of their diagrams are a little too difficult to follow. There are the usual typos but I've been pleasantly surprised to find that they don't resort to saying an answer is right or wrong "just because". There were a lot of major reasoning mistakes in the "LSAT Answers" but I haven't found anything of significance in "LSAT Explained".

I don't think you're wasting money on the book, but I don't think GetPrepped's explanations are of the same caliber as what I've seen of Kaplan and possibly Princeton Review.

If you get this book you'll want to try to figure out why you got a question wrong before you turn towards "Explained" for explanations. Personally, I wouldn't want my understanding of the LSAT or the individual questions to hinge on this book but it is a decent supplement for thinking in greater depth and getting another perspective on the questions.

I found the explanations in this book lacking, unlike Kaplan and Powerscore where they give specific reasons to why one shouldn't choose an answer or why one is correct, this guide pretty much seemed very novice. On top of that, there were numerous mistakes and typos where the book would list an answer but then when reading the descriptions for each answer option it would indicate the answer as something completely different. The Logic Game portion of this book is very confusing, it doesn't set up the problems very well.
This book isn't a total waste, but the small mistakes here and there were so unnecessary especially when paying attention to detail on the LSAT is imperative. So far Powerscore guides are the best for your money. I suggest if you have a budget stay away from this book.

This book is amazing! It breaks down the different types of logic games into different sections, gives you the best way to tackle it and then gives you lots of chances to practice. This is a definite buy if you are preparing for the LSAT's.

There are approximately 44 original games in the book.

Like a lot of 3rd party books on LSAT logic games, this book doesn't use real LSAT games and instead the authors have written their own. I don't have a problem with this, but I find these made-up games often don't do a good job at recreating the true feel of an LSAT game.

I found the categorization of the games a bit odd, but I bought the book more for the extra problems so how they categorized the game isn't really that important.

The book is ok if you've exhausted the supply of official LSAT problems and are looking for more games to do. It's not great as a teaching tool, but sufficient as a source of extra practice.

I found the games to be neither overly easy nor overly difficult. They're just about right. Hard enough to stretch you and teach you how to work through the problems faster, which is what a lot of people have trouble with, timing.

I bought this book looking for a detailed method for solving the riddle that are LSAT logic games. Instead, I found a book that can tell me how to identify the types of games, but leaves me without straightforward methods for solving the problems. A better strategy would be to simply do as many of the offical LSAT problems as you can before you take the test.
However, it is helpful to have quite a few examples of "solved" problems with explanation. With the official test book, you know that you got the answer wrong, but don't know why.
So, if you have the money to spend recklessly, this book will get you further toward your goal of understanding how logic games work, but it may not help you do much better on them without practice, practice, practice.