Do SAT preparation courses help?
Of course they do. Many years ago, the Educational Testing Services (ETS), which administers the SAT’s, used to put out the propaganda that preparation does not help. So, when I took the tests, in the distant past, although I did not take an SAT course, I prepared for them on my own using Barron’s. Since many of my fellow students believed the ETS propaganda and did not prepare for the tests, the competition was much less intense when I took the SAT’s. Subsequently, ETS was forced by law to disclose its previous tests (they used to be secret, so preparation courses like Kaplan’s had to send in memory experts to take the tests and memorize the questions). Now, even ETS admits that preparation does help (Duh). But the result of this is similar to the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. If everyone else is either taking an SAT course or preparing for the SAT’s, then the overall level of competition rises. As in Alice in Wonderland, you must keep running just to stay in the sa
