Our Recommendations
People ask us all the time what supplies and resources they need to get. These are our favorite picks based on actual usage. Not much to it.
Pick your favorites and go.
Calculators
Graphing
Standard.
(Don’t bother.)
You don’t technically need a graphing calculator for these tests, but if that extra capability helps you feel faster and less anxious on the exam, we recommend the good old TI-84. Not too much, not too little. Full graphing and programming capability with moderate prices. People ask us about TI Inspire since “it’s the best” (ie. costs the most), but in our experience, it does nothing extra that actually helps on the day.
Scientific
Original!
Updated.
Favorite standard scientific calculators. Much cheaper than graphing calculators, but just as effective in the right hands. Casio by far has the best robust reliability that we’ve seen. (Certain others, cough - TI-30XIIS, have been known to straight-up give the occasional incorrect answer.) We use the original version of Casio’s fx-300MS but it is apparently now hard to find. We have not played with their updated version, but based on Casio’s record assume it’s the same level of quality.
Pencils
We can’t help it… we’re proud of our inner-nerd…
Our favorite studying pencil. Strong, durable, clean lines, firm grip. And colorful, too!!
Standard #2 Pencil. Required for most standardized exams.
Textbooks
The Official SAT Guide 2020 provides 8 official practice exams direct from the College Board Inc., official makers of the SAT Exam. The best way to study for a test is to get practice tests as close to the real thing as possible.
The Official ACT Prep Guide 2019-2020 provides 5 official practice exams direct from ACT Inc., official makers of the ACT Exam. The best way to study for a test is to get practice tests as close to the real thing as possible.
Note: The main purpose of these textbooks is generally solely for the practice exams towards the back of the book. Official guides contain official practice tests, which are typically the closest you can get to the real thing, leading to the best increases in performance… We typically ignore everything else in the books, though. We find their explanatory front-matter somewhat… lacking.
Note: You as an individual student can also find most of these practices tests for free online at their respective sources, but based on The College Board and ACT, Inc.’s copyright requirements, purchase is required for us to be able to help you with them.
(I know. 😕 We don’t make these rules…)
Therefore, purchase of these guides is already included in any of our paid programs.