futureU
Kaplan is a SAT prep company, Aspyr makes games and great T-shirts.
Put them both together and you have an easy-going way to sharpen up your test taking skills.
The three test areas in this disk are math, reading and writing and each has two different sections.
Writing offers Ante Upgrade, which tests your skill at writing correctly,
plus an opportunity to up your score by essentially betting on how confident you are that you are right.
In Writing Wrong you play teacher, correcting sentence errors.
I was surprised at how much grammar is included.
Reading has Predictions, where you guess as which words are most appropriate
to fill in blanks in a sentence.
Glyph requires you to take apart words and pick the correct root.
Math includes Grid Swap, a moderately complicated exercise at solving
four problems at once and then matching the correct answers to the problems.
The other section, Connections, gives you a choice as to which of two problems to solve.
Two other lessons involve a quick quiz on multiple topics and a the other, a most interesting lession,
clues you into how to skip the hardest questions, since in the SAT you are allowed to skip questions.
I think that what this product offers is a less onerous way of preparing for the SAT than sitting down with a manual.
It will not teach you much more than you already know.
It may point up your shortcomings, but the best thing it does is make you aware
that reading the questions carefully and paying attention to the directions are vital.
There is no time limit, which should relieve some of the test-taking anxiety.
Your current and previous test scores are displayed, but it would have been more helpful to
show a history of your progress.
Many of these brain games do.
I could not tell how many lessons there were in each section.
For the exercises to be useful - there would have to be a substantial number.
The disk will play on both the PC and the Mac.
Reviewed by: Editor - 09/08
Ages: Everyone
Fun Factor: Useful but do not give this as a Holiday present