Hack the SAT: Strategies and Sneaky Shortcuts That Can Raise Your Score Hundreds of Points

Eliot Schrefer

Penguin, Jul 17, 2008 - Study Aids - 256 pages

A top SAT coach—whose high-scoring strategies earned him $300 an hour from Manhattan’s elite private-school students —now makes his unique, proven secrets available to all.

Money can buy academic success, and the SAT is no exception. Harvard honors graduate Eliot Schrefer discovered this lucrative truth when he took a job at the nation’s most exclusive test-prep firm. He has helped hundreds of his clients raise their scores an average of 300 points and reel in admission to exclusive colleges. Now, in a guide that is as unique as his tricks, Schrefer brings his extraordinary pointers to every anxious applicant.

This user-friendly rescue manual delivers such scoreboosting features as:

• a killer vocabulary list, including words the SAT has repeated for decades (and why reading Vanity Fair magazine is smart test prep)
• cheap tricks to master the math section (surprise! you learned all you needed to know about SAT math by the eighth grade)
• how to be a grammar genius without cracking another book (bonus: discover the tiny subset of grammar rules that is the SAT’s secret lover)

Schrefer writes in a snappy, conversational tone, dishing gossipy anecdotes about former clients while presenting advice not found in competing books. With a design that is as vibrant as a gamer’s virtual world, this is the ultimate weapon in the quest for test-score triumph.

Contents

• You First Hear About the Test Or You Experience a Bout of Lunchroom Terror: 3
• You Decide to Take the SAT Or You Pretend You Have a Choice: 7
• You Choose Test Dates Or You Realize That Test Dates Are Far Less Fun Than Real Dates: 11
• You Realize That There Are SAT Subject Tests Or You Say These Too?: 13
• You Come Up with a Preparation Plan Or You Have Your Secretary Clear Your Social Calendar for the Next Year: 19
• You Take the PSAT Or You Hit the Speed Bump That Wrecks Your Suspension: 25
• You Discover Which Questions to Skip Or You Meet the Best Question You Never Answered: 29
• You Hear About the Perfect Score That Youll Never Get Or You Learn Not to Say Ill Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours: 31
• You Get Ready to Take the Test Again Or Your Tutor Tells You Sorry Bud Time to Retake: 33
• Critical Reading Cheap Tricks from Your Tutor with Commentary from Various Sassy Students: 35
• Your Tutor Explains It All for You and Finds Love Along the Way: 37
• Learning Pretty Words: 40
• Why Never Having Read a Book in Your Life Will Bite You in the Ass and a Few Ways to Fake It: 42
• How Insightful Thinking Will Foul You Up Every Time: 50
• Practice Reading Comprehension Passage: 65
• Math Even Cheaper Tricks from Your Tutor with Commentary from Various Sassy Students: 71
• You Learned All the Math You Needed to Know by the Eighth Grade: 73
• Three Essential Keys to Math Success: 76
• What to Do if Youre Screwed: 81
• Sundry Strategies: 91
• Writing Rockbottom Cheap Tricks from Your Tutor with Commentary from Various Sassy Students: 157
• Why This Section Is the Easiest of All Three and Why Sadly It Also Matters the Least: 159
• Stop Being a Wimp: 161
• Grammar: 176
• Beating the Final Boss What to Do with Everything Youve Learned Including a Practice Drill and Applications Advice: 191
• Where to Practice Everything Youve Learned Herein: 193
• SAT Drill: 195
• The Day of the Test: 206
• Applying to Colleges: 209
• Final Words of Ineptitude Formerly Known as Final Words of Wisdom: 218

About the author

Eliot Schrefer is an author of fiction for adults and young adults, and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. He is a faculty member of the Creative Writing MFA Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is the author of Endangered, Threatened, and the nonfiction study guide Hack the SAT.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Hack the SAT: Strategies and Sneaky Shortcuts That Can Raise Your Score Hundreds of Points
• Author: Eliot Schrefer
• Publisher: Penguin, 2008
• ISBN: 1592403697, 9781592403691
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Study Aids / College Entrance; Study Aids / SAT; Study Aids / Study Guides