Peterson's Ap Success 2002: English Language & Composition (Ap Success : English Language & Compostion, 2002)

Rating:
Summary: Acceptable preparation at best
Review: Glancing through the book when it arrived, my eyes fell upon 6 Important Strategies, a list prominently featured on the first page after the table of contents. Important strategy three was this: "Don't rely on your memory go back to the passage." So blatant a run-on sentence in a book about English is, at best, amusing.

The book lived up to my initial impression of it. It contained four practice tests (one called a diagnostic test and placed at the book's beginning), and each included a number of questions unlike those on the real test. Though the authors discussed testing procedures and the scoring of the multiple choice section quite well, their treatment of the scoring of the free-response section was inadequate and even misleading. Like most books of its kind, it featured such useless things as a review of basic grammar (a thing that is not directly tested on the exam and that if unknown to a person should be his last concern in preparing) and a large list of suggested reading.

In short, this is a poor but sadly typical test prep book; it was planned with a frontcover listing of features in mind, thrown together without great care or thought, rushed to the presses in time for the school season, and sold to anxious preppies like me.

Rating:
Summary: Acceptable preparation at best
Review: Glancing through the book when it arrived, my eyes fell upon 6 Important Strategies, a list prominently featured on the first page after the table of contents. Important strategy three was this: "Don't rely on your memory go back to the passage." So blatant a run-on sentence in a book about English is, at best, amusing.

The book lived up to my initial impression of it. It contained four practice tests (one called a diagnostic test and placed at the book's beginning), and each included a number of questions unlike those on the real test. Though the authors discussed testing procedures and the scoring of the multiple choice section quite well, their treatment of the scoring of the free-response section was inadequate and even misleading. Like most books of its kind, it featured such useless things as a review of basic grammar (a thing that is not directly tested on the exam and that if unknown to a person should be his last concern in preparing) and a large list of suggested reading.

In short, this is a poor but sadly typical test prep book; it was planned with a frontcover listing of features in mind, thrown together without great care or thought, rushed to the presses in time for the school season, and sold to anxious preppies like me.