Freer, Alexandra. Girls' guide to the SAT: tips and techniques for closing the gender gap & Robinson, Adam & Katzman, John. Cracking the SAT. 2004 ed

Kliatt, Nov, 2003 by Paula Rohrlick

FREER, Alexandra. Girls' guide to the SAT; tips and techniques for closing the gender gap. Random House, The Princeton Review. 240p. bibliog, c2003. 0-375-76240-X. $14.95. S

ROBINSON, Adam & KATZMAN, John. Cracking the SAT. 2004 ed. Random House, The Princeton Review. 590p. (Includes Mac/ Windows CD-ROM). c2003. 0-375-76330-9. $30.95. S

Anxiety about the SAT is endemic in high school; these titles aim to build test takers' confidence and help them score higher. According to Freer, Executive Director of The Princeton Review in New Jersey and author of Girls" Guide to the SAT, girls score an average of 39 points lower than boys on the SAT. Part of the problem is the way the test is written, she maintains, and part is the way that girls approach it. She suggests specific strategies to overcome these challenges: e.g., learning how the test is structured, how to solve different types of math and verbal problems (many practice questions are provided), how to concentrate under pressure, and how to guess well. The book is dense with useful information; there's a lot to absorb.

It's not a dry guide, though it doesn't have the "attitude" the irreverent Up Your Score (reviewed in KLIATT in May 2003) boasts. The annual Cracking the SAT guide offers seven full-length practice tests--three in the book, and four on the CD-ROM that is included--along with helpful tips on each section, lists of word roots, the six operations that you need to know in math, and much more. Both titles should be in every high school guidance office. Paula Rohrlick, KLIATT