Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part I: Paving the Way to Private School: Introducing the SSAT and ISEE 3 Part II: Ramping Up for the Verbal, Reading, and Essay Sections 3 Part III: Tackling the Math Sections 3 Part IV: SSAT Practice Exams 3 Part V: ISEE Practice Exams 4 Part VI: The Part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 Part I: Paving the Way to Private School: Introducing the SSAT and ISEE 5 Chapter 1: Getting to Know the SSAT and ISEE 7 Approaching the SSAT and ISEE 7 Testing your ability 7 Knowing what to expect from test questions 8 Preparing yourself: Practice makes perfect 8 Getting to Know the SSAT 9 Exploring the structure of the SSAT 9 Separating the upper and lower level SSAT 10 Scoring the SSAT 10 How questions are graded 10 What is sent to your school 11 How your school uses the score 11 Registering for the SSAT 12 Knowing what to bring to the SSAT testing center 12 Scoping Out the ISEE 13 Understanding what''s on the ISEE 14 Comparing the upper, middle, and lower level ISEE 14 Upper level ISEE 15 Middle level ISEE 15 Lower level ISEE 15 Scoring the ISEE 16 How questions are graded 16 What is sent to your school 16 How your school uses the score 17 Registering for the ISEE 17 Figuring out what to bring to the ISEE testing center 17 Chapter 2: Picking Up Study Skills and Techniques for Testing Success 19 Clocking Your Time 19 Practice, practice, practice 20 Resist the urge to finish 20 Skip questions 20 Using the Process of Elimination 21 Figuring Out a Guessing Strategy 23 Guessing on the ISEE 23 Guessing on the SSAT 24 Part II: Ramping Up for the Verbal, Reading, and Essay Sections 25 Chapter 3: Defining Your Vocabulary Skills 27 Studying Vocabulary 27 Flipping through flashcards 27 Memorizing mnemonic devices 28 Interpreting words in context 28 Using repetition 29 Breaking Down Vocabulary Words 29 Digging up roots 29 Starting with prefixes 31 Ending with suffixes 32 Vocabulary Practice: Lower Level SSAT and Lower and Middle Level ISEE 33 Vocabulary Practice: Upper Level SSAT and ISEE 36 Chapter 4: Talking Up Verbal Reasoning 41 What Verbal Reasoning Looks Like 41 Making Sense of Analogies 42 Mapping out your strategy for analogies 42 Put the words in a sentence that shows the relationship 43 Plug the answer choices in to your sentence 43 When in doubt, refine the sentence 44 When you don''t know a word (or several), look for clues 45 When you have trouble establishing the relationship, dig deeper 46 Trying your hand at analogy practice questions 46 Getting the Scoop on Synonyms 48 Planning your synonym attack strategy 48 Checking out a few sample synonym questions 49 Filling in Sentence Completion Questions 50 Building a strategy for sentence completion 50 Working through a few sentence completion questions 51 Chapter 5: Practicing Verbal Reasoning 53 Tackling Guided Lower Level SSAT Analogy Questions 53 Practicing Lower Level SSAT Analogy Questions on Your Own 55 Answers to Lower Level SSAT Analogy Questions 57 Tackling Guided Upper Level SSAT Analogy Questions 58 Practicing Upper Level SSAT Analogy Questions on Your Own 60 Answers to Upper Level SSAT Analogy Questions 62 Tackling Guided Lower and Middle Level Synonym Questions 63 Practicing Lower and Middle Level Synonym Questions on Your Own 64 Answers to Lower and Middle Level Synonym Questions 65 Tackling Guided Upper Level Synonym Questions 66 Practicing Upper Level Synonym Questions on Your Own 67 Answers to Upper Level Synonym Questions 68 Tackling Guided Lower and Middle Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions 68 Practicing Lower and Middle Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions on Your Own 70 Answers to Lower and Middle Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions 71 Tackling Guided Upper Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions 72 Practicing Upper Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions on Your Own 73 Answers to Upper Level ISEE Sentence Completion Questions 74 Chapter 6: Comprehending Reading Comprehension 75 Ramping Up on Reading Passages 75 Recognizing the types of reading passages 76 Reading passages on the test 76 Scanning passages instead of reading them 77 Circling key words, phrases, and ideas 77 Creating a mental outline 78 Checking out a sample passage 78 Adopting Strategies for Answering Questions about Passages 79 Getting Familiar with Types of Reading Comprehension Questions 79 Global content questions 80 Specific content questions 81 Word-in-context questions 82 What-is-true questions 83 Elimination questions 84 Inference questions 85 Chapter 7: Practicing Reading Comprehension 87 Tackling Guided Lower and Middle Level Reading Comprehension Questions 87 Practicing Lower and Middle Level Reading Comprehension Questions on Your Own 89 Answers to Lower and Middle Level Reading Comprehension Questions 92 Tackling Guided Upper Level Reading Comprehension Questions 93 Practicing Upper Level Reading Comprehension Questions on Your Own 96 Answers to Upper Level Reading Comprehension Questions 99 Chapter 8: Writing a Winning Essay 101 Exploring Essay Writing and Your Exam 101 What do essay readers want to see? 101 How are essays graded? 102 What Will You Write About? 103 Exploring common topics 103 Figuring out how to approach a topic 104 Organizing Your Essay from Beginning to End 106 Starting with an effective introduction 106 Big idea 106 More specific ideas 106 Thesis statement 107 Developing effective body paragraphs 107 Wrapping up with a well-crafted conclusion 108 Proofing Your Essay 108 Checking for common grammar problems 109 Watching out for sentence trouble 110 Chapter 9: Practicing Writing Essays 111 Upper Level Essay 111 Following the example of sample essays 111 Responding to upper level essay practice prompts 113 Lower Level and Middle Level Essay 113 Following the example of sample essays 114 Responding to lower and middle level essay practice prompts 115 Part III: Tackling the Math Sections 117 Chapter 10: Adding Up Arithmetic 119 Solving Basic Arithmetic Questions 119 Reviewing Arithmetic 120 Rules of zero 120 Order of operations 120 Number lines 121 Negative numbers 122 Fractions 123 Reducing and rewriting fractions 123 Adding and subtracting fractions 124 Multiplying and dividing fractions 124 Comparing fractions 125 Dealing with remainders 125 Decimals 125 Decimal places 125 Adding, subtracting, dividing, and multiplying decimals 126 Converting fractions to decimals and decimals to fractions 126 Rounding and estimating decimals 127 Percents 127 Factors and multiples 129 Exponents 130 Probability 130 Roots 131 Estimating roots 131 Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing roots 131 Simplifying roots 131 Scientific notation 132 Chapter 11: Practicing Arithmetic 133 Attacking Guided Lower and Middle Level Arithmetic Questions 133 Practicing Lower and Middle Level Arithmetic Questions on Your Own 136 Answers to Lower and Middle Level Arithmetic Questions 138 Tackling Guided Upper Level Arithmetic Questions 139 Practicing Upper Level Arithmetic Questions on Your Own 141 Answers to Upper Level Arithmetic Questions 144 Chapter 12: Acing Algebra 147 Attacking Algebra Questions 147 Battling Basic Algebra 147 Solving equations 148 Knowing the rules of expressions 149 Solving inequalities 150 Determining absolute value 150 Working with Statistics, Percents, and Ratios 151 Exploring mean, median, mode, and range 151 Calculating percentage changes 153 Using ratios and proportions 154 Working with Rules, Patterns, Ordering, and Counting 155 Discovering the purpose of functions 155 Seeing the pattern in sequences 155 Arranging permutations and combinations 156 Permutations 156 Combinations 157 Matching up numbers in matrices 157 Chapter 13: Practicing Algebra 159 Practicing Guided Lower and Middle Level Algebra Questions 160 Attacking Lower and Middle Level Algebra Questions on Your Own 162 Answers to Lower and Middle Level Algebra Questions 164 Practicing Guided Upper Level Algebra Questions 166 Tackling Upper Level Algebra Questions on Your Own 168 Answers to Upper Level Algebra Questions 170 Chapter 14: Jamming with Geometry 173 Gearing Up for Geometry Questions 173 Reviewing Geometry Concepts 174 Lines, angles, and perimeter 174 Triangles 176 Finding the area of a triangle 177 Equilateral triangles 178 Isosceles triangles 178 Ri.