3rd Edition, The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar 3rd ed. Edition

The Writing & Language portion of the SAT is different from the Grammar section of the old SAT in one important way. The Writing & Language section leans heavily on STYLE. Style is a tricky animal because it often depends on unspoken rules and context. When an author is described as being a "good" writer or more commonly a "bad" writer, frequently what is being criticized is the author's style. Fortunately, because the SAT is a standardized test, so to must be the stylistic conventions tested. But students still need to be told what those stylistic conventions are.The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar elevates itself from other grammar books in that it dissects the types of questions the newest incarnation of the SAT tests. Ms. Meltzer is methodical in her analysis of the first 4 released SATs and uses that data to produce 18 lessons on concepts necessary to score well on the Writing & Language section. Additionally, she indexes the question type for each of the W&L questions to enable a test taker to understand what types of questions he/she struggles with. This is a useful tool for the students who want to attain a perfect score on this test.The chapters are focused and clearly written (good style) and provide the reader with exercises to practice the concepts described. Many students use their "guts" for this section and rely on what "sounds" right, but this is a mistake because the rules of written English are much more exacting than spoken English, and The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar gives a thorough explanation of the rules and how to apply those rules.Just the Facts:252 PagesTargeted Practice for the Writing & Language section onlyNo full testsPaper Quality is excellent--you can write and erase several times without breaking through[...]

Good prep

I took the June 2016 SAT exam and this, plus Meltzer's reading comprehension book, helped me achieve a 780.This workbook allowed me to practice: (1) parts of speech, (2) shortening sentences, (3) dangling modifiers, (4) matching pronouns and nouns, (5) tense, (6) S-V agreement, (7) parallel structure, (8) FANBOYS, (9) nonessential phrases and more. My favorite was the nonessential words chapter. Most of my friends struggle with this area, but when we read Meltzer's explanations of how to identify nonessential words and thereby determine when commas have/have not correctly (or at least necessarily) been used, we instantly got it. The ah-ha moment made this book worth the investment.Meltzer breaks down the lessons concisely and gives exercises for each lesson. I practiced the same worksheets over and over to master and polish every area. When I took the SAT, the questions were consistent with what I learned through the workbook.This book does have some typos and confusing mistakes though. In 2-3 questions, the answers are duplicative. The answer is both "(A) No change" and another option that restates the original text. Another passage underlines one too many words, rendering all of the answer choices incorrect without that last word. Still, the pros of this book FAR outweigh any con and I have been recommending this enthusiastically to all my friends.

There actually is no competitor to Meltzer's book when it comes to a book of this type for the SAT Writing/Reading (she has a great Reading book too). It isn't about drilling as most of them are. It's about the philosophy of the SAT. She also backs up her advice with relevant questions from Khan Academy in each chapter (Khan has partnered with College Board to provide free practice, so these are not made up questions by someone who is not connected with the company who writes the test). There is a LOT of information in this book and it does NOT go on ad nauseam about process of elimination, which seems to be the basis of most other "strategy" books. Anyway, a very good book. That being said, there are typos (just as in ANY other book - so certainly NO reason to condemn this book as some on here have - that's just silly - what you get out of it far overrides the flaws found in it), as others have said, and the only thing I could wish for is for the author to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE respond when people write with questions, or alternatively, just to simply be proactive and publish a listing of the known typos in the book. This would allow me to give the book five stars. Note to the author: As you have a blog, Erica, I would strongly recommend posting an entry simply listing these errors (that's not so hard, is it, Erica? Erica, you must know them by now. And it would be so simple to make this product fabulous.), so the young people who are supporting you, Erica Meltzer, by purchasing your book (and relying on you) aren't confused, forever wondering if they've run into a typo or if they truly do not understand your advice. Help your supporters out here, eh? And help me out, so I can recommend your book without caveats. I hate to see fantastic products fall short of what they could be.

I have taught high school English for 25 years. In the past several years, our district and state exams have mirrored the format of the SAT tests and I was constantly searching for good-quality teaching and practice material. I wish that I had found this book years ago.The Ultimate SAT Grammar takes you beyond the practice; it gives advice on how to approach each problem. The explanations are clear. If you take your time to actually read and work through this guide, I am sure that your SAT scores will improve dramatically.By the way, I recommend this book for ACT prep as well because the format and content are quite similar.