During my four years of high school, I bought many many review books. I bought a Princeton Review for practically ever Advanced Placement class I took.

This is the way I see both review books:

Princeton Review always gives you an advantage just because it’s made by the makers of the SAT. I actually bought one of these and it was very helpful. The review book gave me enough Math practice and like 8 actual-length SAT practice tests. The questions were extremely similar to the ones I encountered on the SAT. Not only that, but the vocabulary from the Critical Reading section was also on the SAT. For review books in different subjects (like AP European History and so on), Princeton Review offers a more summarized explanation of the topics and the questions are always very very similar to the ones on the tests.

All the Barron’s guides I have encountered always have harder questions than the actual tests. I would say the following…if for example, you have trouble with Math…get an SAT Math Workbook from Barron’s. Since they have harder questions than the SAT, these will help you get in shape for the test.

I say get the Princeton Review book. It’s from the college board and they’re the ones that make the test, so go for that one. The thick, big, blue book.

Princeton Review has a lot of starting strategies, but it’s more targeted for middle-of-the-pack students. Once you get up there, you’re kind of on your own. However, I still almost always choose Princeton’s Review because its questions are closer to the real thing than I’ve seen any other book get, and it’s written in a more friendly tone, if that counts for anything. (Someone earlier wrote that the Princeton Review was written by the same people who wrote the SAT, but that is simply not the case. They just study it intensively and mimic the real thing.) I think that the Princeton Reivew book and the Official Guide to the SAT used in combination is the best test prep out there for the SAT. Official Guide (the only resource actually by the College Board, not Princeton) will give you rationales and explanations that are a little more… well, official, but you’ll see what I mean if you haven’t already seen them. Princeton Review’s information is more like strategy, almost like tricks, but they’re a good way to think about the SAT.

When you start thinking like the SAT, you’re good to go.

PR would probably be the better review book if you need to learn a lot of basic strategies. It would probably give you more questions to practice with than the Barron’s boom would. But if you know for a fact that you got high-ish scores (like 1900, for instnce) on the SAT or the PSAT, you might buy the Barron’s book. That book will give you more advanced strategies.

I would say Princeton Review out of the two. But College Board is, in my opinion, the best.

i would say barrons,because i used it and got a good score