Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT Book

Big changes are coming to the SAT. Much to the consternation of America's high school students, beginning in March 2005, the SAT will include a written exam with required essay; the math section will add questions covering Algebra II; and the verbal section will be reconfigured as a critical reading exam. But one thing won't change--the best way to ace the test is to outsmart it with strategy and attitude, which is why the Up Your Score franchise is growing every year. Janet Xu knows: Using the student-tested Up Your Score as her study guide, she scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT and is this edition's guest editor.

A special edition that straddles the new and the old, the 2005-2006 Up Your Score is revised and updated to address the specific changes in the upcoming SAT, yet still contains all the material relevant to students taking the current SAT in Fall 2004. It combines guerilla tactics with rock-solid strategies for acing the writing, math, and verbal sections, and wraps it all in humor that does the opposite of distract--in fact, as so many students know, attitude actually makes the material more memorable, the lessons more effective. Up Your Score covers the thirteen rules of the essay section; 600 key vocabulary words, and how to improve memory and concentration so you can actually remember them; insider math tricks; how to do the sections in the best order; techniques to hone speed and timing (just filling in the answer circles correctly can save six minutes); plus, why it's better to guess than to leave a question unanswered. With recipes for Sweet & Tasty 800 Bars (and how to smuggle them into the testing hall) and a revamped Web site, www.upyourscore.com.