Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the New SAT

Can we help?:

• Ask us a question
• Submit a Product Review
• Send to a Friend
• Schedule a Gift Reminder

Description: Abate, abhor, abject, abridge, abstemious ... still awake? Good, because now there's a better way to learn all those words than plowing through those never-ending vocabulary lists devised by torture experts. Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the New SAT is just what it says it is: a guide to the big, bad SAT words in the form of a mystery novel. Follow Caitlin and Phil's exploits as they wend their way through their first year of college and find intrigue behind the curtain of academia. As you do, you'll find a few words in boldface, each of which is defined and compared with other words in a glossary in the back of the book. Seeing the word in its context and immediately finding a definition is a much more satisfying way to learn than just to read word after unconnected word--you might as well read the dictionary! A preface explains in greater detail how best to use the book, and there are helpful SAT-style exercises in antonyms, analogies, and comprehension, so this makes a great all-around verbal package for the serious test-taker. If you must take the test, you might as well have a little fun doing it, and by the time you've finished Tooth and Nail, you'll be glad it doesn't end as a list: "...wizened, wreak, writhe, zeal, zealous." --Rob Lightner

Genre: Modern fiction; SAT (Educational test); Educational Tests And Measurements; Fiction; Mystery/Suspense; Study Guides; Scholastic Assessment Test; SAT and PSAT; Study Aids / SAT and PSAT (Scholastic Assessment Test and Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test); Mystery and Detective - General; Scholastic aptitude test;

Average Review: 3 stars

Review: Better than a sharp stick in the eye..... maybe : Better than a sharp stick in the eye....maybe Although the concept seems like a good idea, in reality due to the lack of any real plot the only thing this "novel" managed to do was drone on and on and on while going absolutely nowhere. The cramming of three to four words in a single sentence was just annoying. The chapter on the radio talk show was so mind numbingly boring that I considered just blowing the assignment off and going to the beach. For example, "...I would like to ask our listeners to abandon for a moment the tedious insistence on objective fact and impartial analysis that tyrannizes so much scholarship and to indulge instead there powers of speculation." Seriously, is all that needed to get the thought across? Or are they just using a lot of words to fill up space (like most kids on their English essays). However because it was assigned reading and I will be graded on it I persevered. Most of the words I am already familiar with. The ones I was not were not driven home, as it were, by this style of study. I think my time will be better spent in an SAT Prep class, and using practice tests. Certainly more time consuming but far less painful. Really, reading a dictionary cover to cover would have been a better use of time. It probably would have also been a better read. Again, the concept could have been a good one if the authors had given more thought to the audience that they were writing for. One sure way to impede the education process for my age group is to bore us to tears. The question remains would I recommend this book. To the student that has grown up in an inarticulate environment with no real grasp of the English language well, yeah, maybe. For the rest of the overstressed, pre SAT crowd who have been exposed to the world at large, save your money.