Best SAT Prep Books 2024

There are a lot of "Best SAT Books" lists out there, but we think that most of them aren't very good or thorough. As a result, I've tried to write a much better guide here.

In this article, you'll learn which books are absolutely critical for your SAT prep, which books you can use to improve your individual section scores, and which books you'll need if you're aiming for a top score. More importantly, you'll learn how to use these SAT prep books for effective studying.

This guide is pretty detailed, so here are reference links you can use to jump directly to different parts of the article. That said, I recommend reading the whole guide if you can! This guide has also been fully updated to only include prep books designed for the digital SAT, the most current version of the exam.

• What's Better About This Guide to the Best SAT Books?
• Who Is This SAT Prep Books Guide For?
• Critical SAT Prep Books
• Best SAT Books by Subject
• Best Books for Top SAT Scorers
• Best All-in-One Book for Less Motivated Low Scorers
• The #1 SAT Prep Book to Avoid Buying
• Other Free Resources to Help You Plan Your SAT Prep
• Is Using SAT Prep Books the Best Option for You?

What's Better About This Guide to the Best SAT Books?

Since your SAT score is important for your college applications and you'll likely spend a fair amount of time studying for the test, it's important to get the right advice. Follow the wrong advice, and by the time you realize it's wrong, it'll probably be too late to improve your SAT score.

Ideally, you'll vet any advice you get (including ours) before deciding on your SAT prep plan. Before you read each article in your research, be sure to ask yourself, "Why should I trust this person online giving me SAT advice?"

Well, we answer that question right here. Here's why this SAT prep books guide is far better than others you might find online:

• I explain in detail why certain SAT books are good and what each book's flaws are. You probably haven't heard of some of these prep books; many are newer or less well known and thus aren't featured as widely as books from more popular companies with larger marketing budgets. Most other SAT books guides just list a few books without context, but we tell you every critical piece of information you need to know before buying a book.
  
  
• I believe it's important to target your weaknesses and where you need to prep. I'll point out SAT books that are best for training for specific sections and books that are better for low or high scorers. Other guides assume that all students are the same, but we tailor ours to a variety of test-taker levels.
  
  
• I don't get paid for promoting these SAT books over others. I don't know any of these authors personally. In reality, I've studied dozens of SAT prep books, and these are the ones I'd use if I myself were prepping. Other sites, such as about.com and reviews.com, get paid to adjust their rankings or get kickbacks from publishers for mentioning their prep books.
  
  
• I like to think that I know what I'm talking about. I scored two perfect scores on the SAT and have worked directly with thousands of students prepping for the SAT. I've helped test takers of all levels, from those scoring around 800 to those aiming for 1530+. Other writers don't have the expertise needed to differentiate between good and bad SAT books, and end up recommending books as an afterthought.

One important disclaimer: I'm co-founder of PrepScholar, an online SAT/ACT prep program. I believe we've built the best SAT prep program available. It diagnoses your strengths and weaknesses and gives you a structured all-in-one guide, combining the best aspects of the SAT books below so you can know exactly what to study at every point in your prep.

I want to stress that you don't need a prep program to do well on the SAT. In fact, writing this guide could lose us some customers if you decide you don't need a program after all. If, however, you're not interested in managing 10 books and would rather have an integrated program that's customized to your learning style, check out our SAT prep program now.

In either case, if you're serious about SAT prep, keep reading.

Who Is This SAT Prep Books Guide For?

First, this guide is for students who are serious about test prep. You need to be motivated to get a high score, and you need to be willing to put in hard work. Getting through these books will take dozens of hours simply because the SAT covers so much material.

If you plan to study just five hours or so, your choice of book won't make much difference. In this case, it's best to focus on taking an official SAT practice test and reviewing your answers. With such little prep time, your score won't go up much in the end, so don't expect any miracles.

Buying SAT prep books is the first and easiest step of SAT prep. You'll need to put in serious work to actually get the score improvements you want, though. In the following sections, we explain the best ways to get the most out of each SAT book we recommend.

Secondly, this guide targets students who want to improve their scores by more than 100 points. To consistently score this much higher on the SAT, you'll need more than just tricks; you'll need to understand the actual content being tested, that is, the underlying math concepts and grammar rules. Don't bother with ineffective "tricks" that simply make you feel as though you've learned something when you actually haven't.

If you're only looking to improve your score by 50 points or so, however, it's possible for you to do this just by retaking the SAT, especially if you've taken the test only once.

Lastly, to improve your score through SAT prep books, you'll need to have an excellent study strategy. It isn't enough to just read a book cover to cover—you must focus on your weaknesses by brushing up on the content you struggle with the most.

Unfortunately, many students spend dozens of hours poring over one book after another without improving their SAT scores. Why? Because they're not understanding what their weaknesses are and aren't focusing their time on their weaknesses.

Without learning how to attack your weak spots, you won't improve your SAT score! It might sound obvious, but it's pretty hard for many students to do this well. I write a lot more about how to prep for the SAT in my guide to a perfect SAT score. It's also how I designed our online SAT program to do all of the hard structural work for you.

Ultimately, if you're serious about SAT score improvement and want to study with top prep books, this is the guide for you.

The Best SAT Prep Books for 2024

For this guide, we're going to divide our picks for the best SAT books into the following categories:

• Critical Books: These are must-have SAT books for your prep, no matter your strengths or weaknesses.

• Subject-Specific Books: These are by far the best books to use to better your SAT Math and Reading and Writing skills.

• Books for Top Scorers: These SAT prep books are guaranteed to push you over the top and help you get the best score you're capable of achieving.

• Books for Low Scorers and Low Motivation: If you only want to study for a few hours and improve your SAT score just slightly, these books are OK to use. Otherwise, avoid them.

• The #1 Book to Avoid: The book I always used to recommend for the old version of the SAT is now squarely on the "Do Not Buy" list. Find out why!

Since the format of the SAT changed so much in 2023/2024 with the release of the digital SAT, I do not recommend using old SAT books to study for the current SAT. Although older SAT practice tests do share some similarities with newer ones, you'll waste a lot of time studying for the wrong topics and questions if you don't know exactly how the old SAT differs from the digital SAT.

Therefore, always use books that target the digital SAT (that is, books published in 2023 or later), such as the ones listed below. You can also use our online SAT prep program to learn more about your specific weaknesses and how you can improve them.

Critical SAT Prep Books

These are the books I believe all test takers should have, regardless of their SAT scores or what skills they need to improve. This is an extremely high standard to meet—in fact, there are only two books out of dozens I've tested that qualify for this title. We introduce them below.

Official SAT Practice Tests

We've written at length about the importance of official SAT practice questions. As you might know, the SAT is a bizarre exam that tests concepts in ways you've never seen in school; thus, you must train with realistic questions in order to accurately learn the patterns of the SAT.

Official SAT tests released by the College Board are the gold standard for practice questions. At present, there are six free, full-length practice exams on Bluebook, College Board’s online testing platform. These aren't exactly a "prep book" in the standard sense, but altogether they make up quite an important resource.

These are digital practice tests, with the same format as the digital SAT. Without a doubt, the quality of official questions is far better than that of questions written by unofficial sources such as Kaplan or Barron's.

Additionally, there are also four official paper-based practice tests that are updated to the most current SAT. However, unless you're one of the few people taking the SAT with pencil and paper due to a test accommodation, these won't be as good a resource as the digital practice tests. That doesn't mean they can't be good practice, as long as you also take digital practice tests.

Even better, all of these official SAT practice tests are free! You can access the tests from the College Board website or our complete guide to official SAT practice tests. If you are taking a paper and pencil SAT, make sure to print them out to get the realistic on-paper testing experience.

Pros

• They're the best set of SAT practice tests you can get anywhere, period. If you want to take a full-length practice test, these are absolutely the ones you should use first.
  
  
• Each test is completely free to access and download.
  
  
• Ten full-length practice tests mean a decent amount of studying. If each test takes about four hours to take and two hours to review, that's a solid 60 hours of study time.
  
  
• Answers and answer explanations are available for all questions.

Cons

• Most students will find that the answer explanations aren't that helpful for self-learning. Many explanations read like this: "A is wrong because A is wrong. B is correct for these reasons." In other words, they don't show you how to solve the question from step one. If you don't know key strategies such as how to approach reading passages or how to plug in numbers for math problems, you'll need a different resource to teach you.
  
  
• The tests don't offer any other instructional material. If you're bad at algebra, you can't rely on this resource alone. These tests are just that—practice tests and practice questions. Nothing else!
  
  
• With only 10 practice tests available, there's not enough practice material for more motivated students or those seeking a large score improvement. You'll want to have one test to get used to the format and figure out your current score level, three to track your progress, one to take right before the actual test, and a couple to keep as backups. Unfortunately, you'll need more practice questions to drill with than you can get from the leftover tests to get really good at the SAT (which is why our prep program has the equivalent of four more practice tests to help you improve your skills).
  
  
• Taking practice tests without a system for learning SAT content isn't going to improve your score, and the tests don't provide any guidance on how to do this. Remember, mastering the SAT is as much about strategy as it is about content!

SAT Prep Black Book, Third Edition

The Black Book by Mike and Patrick Barrett is the only other critical book I recommend for SAT prep. Unfortunately, the book itself isn't sufficient, and even with the practice tests above you'll likely need supplemental help (as I explain below).

What it does have, though, is so good that I believe every student studying with SAT prep books should read it.

What you'll get from the Black Book is essentially a way to think about the SAT. But what does this mean exactly? Here are a few examples:

• You'll learn that the SAT is designed to be a predictable, standardized test. It needs to test basic concepts so that it can be administered nationwide to all students, but it also needs to be difficult, so it often distorts questions in a weird way.
  
  
• It explains how every answer on the SAT must be unambiguously correct, or else test takers would complain that their incorrect answers are correct. Therefore, your main strategy should be to rule out all incorrect answer choices—this is especially important on SAT Reading and Writing.

The concepts in this book were things I understood intuitively back when I took the SAT and was studying for a perfect score. This resource influenced the way I think about teaching our students at PrepScholar. Overall, of all books on the market, the Black Book aligns most closely with my personal philosophies on how to succeed on the SAT.

Pros

• It offers a very lucid take on the SAT. Its ideas will not only change your view on the SAT, but will also motivate you to work harder by showing you that any student can excel on it.
  
  
• The book contains practical strategies that are more helpful than those in most other SAT books. Unlike other popular prep books, this one doesn't rely on ineffective tricks.
  
  
• It doesn't assume all students are the same. Rather, the book offers a few alternatives for strategies, and then suggests you try them out to see which ones work best for you.

Cons

• The book requires a ton of self-discipline and insight to be able to use it effectively. Because you're learning from your mistakes with no one there to guide you, you must be self-driven and willing to experiment with different strategies to figure out which one works best for you. For some students, following a set of straight guidelines could be less confusing.
  
  
• The fundamental content is lacking. If you're weak in word problems, for example, this book alone will not help you master the subject. I believe in recognizing your weaknesses and then mastering that skill through focused prep and practice questions. While this book gives you a general approach to SAT prep, it doesn't teach you the specific content you'll need to know.
  
  
• It's fairly long (more than 500 pages!), with answer explanations that often feel repetitive; however, that's partly due to the structure of the SAT itself (remember, it's a standardized test and therefore repetitive in how it tests certain skills).
  
  
• I personally disagree with some of the key points in this book. For example, the writers believe you should aim to reach a certain skill level rather than aim for a particular score. By contrast, I believe that setting an SAT score goal is a useful motivator.

Once again, I highly recommend these two resources for all students studying with (or only with) SAT prep books. We cover most of the important concepts in the Black Book in our SAT prep program and also provide focused practice on individual skills.

As mentioned above, you'll most likely need specific training on each subject to be able to shore up your weaknesses. Next, we provide you with key resources for individual subjects on the SAT.

Best SAT Books by Subject

Beyond the critical SAT books covered above, you'll likely need supplemental help on specific SAT sections. Here, we discuss the best prep books to use for SAT Reading + Writing and Math. These books all follow my SAT prep philosophy:

• Divide SAT content into skills, and then get focused training on those skills.
• Use realistic, high-quality questions that prep you well for the SAT.
• Cover only what you need to know—not advanced material that won't be on the SAT.

Best SAT Reading and Writing Prep Book

In my experience with thousands of students, SAT Reading and Writing is the most difficult section score to improve. This section uses logical reasoning skills that aren't as easily mastered as math concepts are. As a result, it's extremely important to learn what kinds of questions will be asked and how you can approach them in a systematic way.

My recommendation for best SAT Reading and Writing book is The Critical Reader: The Complete Guide to SAT Reading, Fifth Edition by Erica L. Meltzer. This book dissects the SAT reading section by question type and skill, and does a great job teaching the core of what each question is asking. It also clearly explains how to work with a passage to arrive at the correct answer.

Erica Meltzer's Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar, Sixth Edition rounds out the Reading and Writing section by providing a book on SAT grammar rules. This is also a great SAT prep book, however; since there will only be 12-15 questions on the SAT that test grammar, some students may not want to buy an entire additional book to cover that topic.

Of all writers, Meltzer uses an approach to SAT Reading and Writing prep that aligns most closely with mine: to drill questions skill by skill so you can recognize patterns.

Pros

• It offers a great breakdown of the Reading section on a skill-by-skill level, as well as helpful strategies for every question type. This is the same approach we use in our own SAT prep program.
  
  
• There are lots of high-quality, realistic passages and questions. Meltzer uses passages that are extremely similar to those you'll see on the actual SAT.
  
  
• The book has a helpful guide listing the questions on the SAT by skill so you can get even more focused practice.

Cons

• The cost is somewhat high for a book that covers only part of one SAT section (about $27-$35).
  
  
• Its writing style is dry and clinical like that of an academic textbook. It feels very formal and there are no images to break up the text. I personally prefer this style—cut out the fluff—but it can be too dense for some students. What this means is that you might not even read the book because you find it so boring.
  
  
• Its lack of creative page layouts and lots of text on large pages can get tiresome—sort of like reading a phone book.

Best SAT Math Prep Book

My philosophy on SAT Math is that the best way to significantly improve your Math score is to learn the underlying content. Getting familiar with math questions and learning some strategies like plugging in answer choices can help you make some progress, but you'll quickly run into a wall if you have gaps in your underlying math knowledge.

Your best bet, therefore, is to find a book that can teach you math content in an organized way and give you practice problems you can use to focus on individual skills. It should also cater to your skill level since math questions that are too hard or easy for you will be a waste of time.

For these reasons, I recommend Steve Warner's 1000 New SAT Math Problems. Warner has written multiple SAT prep books for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students, and this book has been fully updated for the digital SAT.

Pros

• Lessons that teach math concepts are clear and helpful. They suggest ways to speed up your ability to solve questions and help you identify what a question is really asking.
  
  
• Practice questions are all fairly realistic with good answer explanations.
  
  
• Customizing your SAT Math practice by skill level is important. If you're scoring below 600, there's no reason to focus on attacking the hardest questions on the test. Warner's books give you appropriate practice for your specific math level.

Cons

• The books' categories are too broad, making it difficult to find specific math concepts to practice. In contrast, our SAT program splits large topics into smaller subjects. In algebra, for example, we go over linear functions, single-variable equations, and systems of equations. By focusing on each individual skill, you can more accurately pinpoint your weaknesses and drill them in your prep.
  
  
• The book costs around $65. This is pretty pricey for basically pages of practice questions.
  
  
• The SAT has some creative, out-there math questions that I don't see covered well in Warner's books.

If you're really struggling with SAT Math at a basic level (say, scoring 500 and below), I recommend supplementing your work with Khan Academy's math modules. This website is a free program that provides an engaging way to train your most basic skills. I believe the core Khan Academy program has better instruction than its SAT prep program, even though it's not focused on the SAT.

Best Book for Top SAT Scorers

As you can see, you already have a lot to work on. With 10 full-length practice tests and multiple SAT books at your disposal, you'll be studying for well over 50 hours. By using the guidelines we recommend, you can make huge improvements in your score.

If you still need extra practice, though, I recommend Barron's Digital SAT Study Guide, especially if you want a perfect or near-perfect score. I remember using Barron's books for my own SAT prep in high school. While their questions aren't as good as those in official SAT practice tests, they're a solid backup source to use when you finish all the other SAT prep books above.

Pros

• The book offers a lot of content—thousands of practice questions and detailed lessons with many examples.
  
  
• This book is extremely thorough, covering every nook and cranny of what you need to know for the SAT. You can be confident that little is tested outside of what's in this book.

Cons

• The topics can get too difficult for what you need to know on the SAT. Some questions get unrealistically hard in a way you'd never see on the actual test. If you're not an SAT expert yet, you won't be able to detect when this happens and might end up wasting time studying irrelevant concepts.
  
  
• The book lacks clear direction on what's important and what's not for the SAT. For example, a grammar rule that appears once every SAT gets the same number of pages as a grammar rule that appears eight times on the SAT. Specifically, algebra is really important but gets far too little treatment. This is definitely not the book to use if you have limited time to study for the SAT.
  
  

Best All-in-One Book for Less Motivated Low Scorers

So far my recommendations have been primarily for the super ambitious students who really want to improve their SAT scores. But I know that there are some students who just want to put in a few hours of prep, get exposure to the test, and then take the SAT and forget about it.

I personally believe that for most test takers, raising your SAT score is the best way to improve your chances of college admission. If you don't want to put in hours of time to raise your score, I strongly suggest questioning your approach to test prep.

Still, some of you either won't have the time or motivation to prep better. If you're one of those just hoping to get the SAT over with, I recommend using Kaplan's Digital SAT Prep Plus 2024. It's an all-in-one book that covers all the material and will familiarize you with the new digital SAT.

The book doesn't excel at any of what it's doing, but it addresses the most important bases for SAT prep. It also has more reasonable content than other all-in-one SAT books like the one by The Princeton Review.

The truth is, I don't love this book. I don't even really like it. I don't recommend it if you actually want to improve your score and are willing to put in the study time needed to do so. However, if you just want a single resource that's easily digestible and does an OK job teaching you the basics, this book is the best one out there.

Pros

• It covers both SAT sections, contains one full-length practice test, and has more than 700 practice questions.
  
  
• At about $28, it's quite affordable for the breadth of SAT content it covers.
  
  
• The book offers some basic test-taking strategies that can get you a few easy points if you're new to standardized testing and often feel like you have no idea what to do.

Cons

• Practice questions tend to be unrealistic—the book doesn't phrase questions the way the SAT would and doesn't always test concepts correctly. In addition, the questions don't trick you in the same ways the real test does.
  
  
• The book only contains one full-length practice test. As you know, one practice test is not nearly enough preparation if you want to get your highest score on the SAT. If you choose this book, you will need to visit the College Board website and take advantage of their free, full-length tests. 
  
  
• Answers and other materials have errors, indicating poor quality control. You'll probably notice many of these mistakes yourself, but if you don't catch them you'll learn the wrong facts and strategies.
  
  
• The strategies are not super helpful once you move past a 600 score in a section. To improve beyond this point, you'll need to master specific content and develop customized strategies based on your weaknesses.

The #1 SAT Prep Book to AVOID Buying

Unlike every other section in this guide, I'm making one specific recommendation against buying an SAT book. This is particularly unusual because, prior to 2015, this was the #1 SAT prep book to get!

So what book is it? None other than The Official Digital SAT Study Guide.

It feels really weird to recommend not buying this book because, for years and years, this was the book to use to study for the SAT. This guide used to contain 10 full-length practice tests you could only get by buying the book.

Here's the problem today, though: much of this book is available for free online. You just go to the College Board website and create a Bluebook account and/or download PDFs to get those same practice tests for free. (The practice tests contained in it are my #1 recommendation at the beginning of this article.) A lot of the information in the book explaining the test is also on the same website.

So why release this information for free? This is all part of the College Board's move to make the SAT more accessible to test takers and to reduce educational inequality.

Such an endeavor is admirable, and I support them—but it also means that The Official Digital SAT Study Guide is now a waste of money. What's more, the material outside the practice tests is superficial and overall unhelpful (we've written far better guides on the Reading and Writing and Math sections, all of which are available on our blog for free).

Pros

• The guide has official SAT practice tests pre-printed for you, so you don't need to print them out yourself (although, with the digital SAT, digital practice tests are better than paper tests).
  
  
• It can be ripped apart for fire kindling or birdcage lining.

Cons

• Each of the practice tests in this guide are available for free through the College Board website.
  
  
• The book doesn't provide any instructional material, so don't expect to actually learn skills and content here. If you're bad at algebra, you can't rely on this book alone. Most test takers buy it for the tests, and the College Board knows this.
  
  
• Taking practice tests without a system for learning isn't going to improve your score, and the book doesn't provide any guidance on how to do this.

Other Free Resources to Help You Plan Your SAT Prep

More important than buying SAT books is knowing how to use them effectively. The more prep books you have, the more important it is to build a unified study system. We've written thorough guides to help guide you through your SAT studies.

Before you buy any books, though, take a realistic SAT practice test to assess what areas you're weak in. Check out our guide on how to set up a diagnostic practice test if you aren't sure where to start.

After taking this first practice test, you'll need to go over your results in detail to pinpoint your weaknesses; this will help you determine where you should spend your prep time and money. For instance, if you did fine on the Reading and Writing sections but bombed Math, you'll want to focus your prep on Math and potentially invest in the SAT Math books recommended above.

It's also important to set a target SAT score so you know what your end goal is for your SAT prep. Students aiming for around 1200 (600 on Math and 600 on Reading and Writing) should use different strategies and prep books than students shooting for 1600. If you're aiming for a top score, check out my comprehensive guide detailing how I got a perfect SAT score.

Finally, you'll need to build a study plan that works well with your schedule and lets you figure out the best time to take the SAT. We offer a free guide explaining the five essential components of an SAT study program guaranteed to improve your score by 160+ points.

Use these free resources to guide yourself through the maze that is SAT prep. (FutUndBeidl/Flickr)

Is Using SAT Prep Books the Best Option for You?

There are a lot of prep methods available, and book studying is just one of them. To explore all our options, let's quickly examine whether using SAT prep books is right for you.

Students who choose to study for the SAT with books do so for different reasons. Some use books because they're cheaper than other options like prep programs and tutors. That said, the best SAT books can get expensive: if you buy all top books, you'll be spending around $200. This is close to the cost of our online SAT prep program, which goes beyond books by guiding your studies step by step and motivating you to put in study time.

Other students use SAT prep books because they're self-motivated and like teaching themselves. If this isn't you, books can be a disappointing way for you to spend your time prepping. Without a solid study strategy, you can put in dozens of hours yet make zero improvement since you're not understanding your weaknesses and how to fix them.

By far one of the most important ways to improve your SAT score is to study and learn from your mistakes. If you can't do this reliably, you'll need extra help to get you started. We've written a free guide comparing various methods of SAT prep. Download this to see which methods are best for you.

Recap: The Best SAT Book in Every Category

Here's our shortlist of the best SAT prep books for 2023-2024, complete with links:

Best Critical SAT Books

• Official SAT Practice Tests
• SAT Prep Black Book (Third Edition)

Best SAT Subject-Specific Books

• The Critical Reader: The Complete Guide to SAT Reading, Fifth Edition
• The Critical Reader: The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar, Sixth Edition 
• Steve Warner's 1000 New SAT Math Problems

Best SAT Books for Top Scorers

• Barron's Digital SAT Study Guide Premium

Best SAT Book for Low Scorers and Low Motivation

• Kaplan's Digital SAT Prep Plus 2024

We've given you an excellent array of SAT books to choose from. Now, it's time to start looking for the ones you think will help you the most and get studying!

What's Next?

Understanding your SAT target score is critical for success. Read our step-by-step guide to help you figure out what exact SAT score you need to aim for on test day.

Want to score a super high SAT score? Get all the tips and expert advice you need in my guide to getting a perfect SAT score.

Looking for additional SAT prep help? Check out our picks for the top SAT prep websites and the top SAT apps you should be using in your studies.

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.