SAT Advice

The Perfect Score Project, by Debbie Stier, is a good book about studying for the SAT. The book is about a mother’s attempt to get a perfect score on the SAT in one year in order to find what is best for helping her kids achieve the best score they could. She has some good recommendations in the book, but it would be better if she knew education and philosophy: then she’d know that Kumon, while good, is not “all that” and leaves a lot to be desired. But nice how a lot of what she recommends and found to work is what I say and do. You could read the book or, as I do, listen to it on Audible.

One of the good points that mother said in her book about the SAT was that college visits should be done in sophomore year to motivate the child and to make his GPA and SAT scores more real and important to him.

Ms. Steir’s Website describes the book as:

The Perfect Score Project is an indispensable guide to acing the SAT – as well as the affecting story of a single mom’s quest to light a fire under her teenage son.

It all began as an attempt by Debbie Stier to help her high-school age son, Ethan, who would shortly be studying for the SAT.  Aware that Ethan was a typical teenager (i.e., completely uninterested in any test) and that a mind-boggling menu of test-prep options existed, she decided – on his behalf — to sample as many as she could to create the perfect SAT test-prep recipe.

Debbie’s quest turned out to be an exercise in both hilarity and heartbreak as she took the SAT seven times in one year and in-between “went to school” on standardized testing.  Here, she reveals why the SAT has become so important, the cottage industries it has spawned, what really works in preparing for the test and what is a waste of time.

Both a toolbox of fresh tips and an amusing snapshot of parental love and wisdom colliding with teenage apathy, The Perfect Score Project rivets. In the book Debbie does it all: wrestles with Kaplan and Princeton Review, enrolls in Kumon, navigates khanacademy.org, meets regularly with a premier grammar coach, takes a battery of intelligence tests, and even cadges free lessons from the world’s most prestigious (and expensive) test prep company.

Along the way she answers the questions that plaque every test-prep rookie, including: “When do I start?”…”Do the brand-name test prep services really deliver?”…”Which should I go with: a tutor, an SAT class, or self study?”…”Does test location really matter?” … “How do I find the right tutor?”… “How do SAT scores affect merit aid?”… and “What’s the one thing I need to know?”

The Perfect Score Project’s combination of charm, authority, and unexpected poignancy makes it one of the most compulsively readable guides to SAT test prep ever – and a book that will make you think hard about what really matters.