The Most Depressing Section of Barnes and Noble

Test prep.

After tennis this morning we went to Barnes and Noble so I could buy an SAT prep book. I thought it would be pretty easy. I mean, grab the Barron's and go, right? But then there were so many choices!

First of all, why on earth are all those books thirty bucks apiece? They're paperback and printed on cheap newsprint! Yes, they have a CD, but wholsesale those go for like 35 cents! The price shouldn't increase any more than a dollar!

Then there are the choices about which to get. There was the normal book, and then there was the special one for people aiming for top scores, and then there were the separate books for each section (the writing one was VERY tempting).

If money hadn't been an issue at all, I would have gotten the Barron's regular book, plus the Barron's 2400 book, plus the Barron's writing workbook, plus the "Increase your essay score in three minutes a day" book. Instead, I got the regular book and the 2400 book. I came pretty close to getting a Peterson's regular review because it was around forty percent cheaper, but my dad actually encouraged me to just pick out the one I thought would help the most. Which was the Barron's. I've found that their sample tests and exercises are just hard enough to motivate me, but not so hard that I panic.

Since I feel guilty for making my parents pay for the more expensive book (I know, I'm a weird teenager), I'm justifying it to myself by remembering that if these books work, I won't be taking the thousand-dollar review course. My plan is to study pretty hard for the November SAT by myself. My goal is 2200 overall, with at least 1500 or so in CR and math. If I score somewhere around there, then I'll study more by myself and take it again in March or so. If I do a lot worse, then I'll probably take a course or get a tutor or something. Probably what would change that would be if I did even worse on the writing section than I did on the PSAT. The thing is, those goals are definitely doable. Using the PSAT scores to guess (remember, the only studying I did was to memorize the instructions), I would have a 2080, with 1450 CR and math. I'll be REALLY upset if I don't make that.

I do have some things going for me. First, I did well on the math subject test, which has sort of erased my old idea that I'm a bad standardized test-taker. Also, while studying for that, I FINALLY broke my habit of filling in random answers that got started when we had to take those reading tests in third grade and our teachers would remind us again and again to not leave any blank. So that should raise my score from when I took the PSAT. Plus, I know more vocab words than I did and I'm better at finding main ideas and themes. So, in theory, I'm in decent shape. Or at least, I will be once I study.