We bought several review resources. Peterson's was the best. It offers extensive guidance about preparing for the test and had lots of hints for success in taking it.

Its practice questions were right on in level of difficulty. Questions in other resources were too easy or too hard. Several only provided limited practice questions.

Our daughter scored in the 99th percentile. While we think she would have done well anyway, the Peterson materials boosted her score a good deal, we are convinced.

I think this book is a great way to prepare for the SSAT and ISEE. It provides lots of great information on the test and it gives you tips on how you can do better on the test. I had to take the SSAT and I don't know how I would've done so good if I hadn't read this book. You should check it out!! It's really worth it!!

My daughter, age 8, loves this book! Even after solving the puzzles (which are solved page by page to get through the story), she still goes back to it, to look at them again. I highly recommend this series.

The story is about two kids who accidentally fall back in time and mix it up with some pirates and find buried treasure, but who cares? The real fun is the comic-book style pictures/words and the puzzles--jumbled words, picture clues, double-entendre poems--that the reader must solve every couple of pages in order to proceed. One of the best features, that I rarely see in other mystery/puzzle books, is that for each puzzle they offer a Hint as well as the Solution. So if you're stumped by a puzzle and torn between wanting to solve it youself and looking at the Solution, you can turn to the Hints page first. Entertaining and absolutely non-frightening (the ominous-sounding "Master" of the ship turns out to be a warm, non-nonsense Grandma). Great for 8-12 year-olds and their puzzle-minded parents.

Affectionate, colorful illustrations accompany this sweet tale of a group of teddy bears preparing for a picnic, traveling to their party site, and returning home at the end of the day. Each page includes a before and after segment of the story via a fold-out section that includes poems and song lyrics. This feature invites parent child interaction and engages the attention spans of pre-schoolers. Teddy bears are always popular characters and Burgess' are no exception. Each picture shows them cheerfully involved in group activities, cooperating with one another throughout their eventful day. Present on every page, two small yellow birds observing it all.

I don't know HOW we got through the first 4 years of my daughters life without this book! The story is wonderful, as always, but the stick characters are what bring the book to life! We have had more fun with this book than any other in our collection. I only wish there were more pop up theater-type books on the market! This book is a "must" for any household; with or without kids! It is a blast.

I bought this book for my son who is 20 months old and LOVES books. He is getting too "old" for many of his board books but is too squirmy to sit through most story books so this is a wonderful transition book. It tells a nice little story and, unlike other cheesy lift-the-flap books, the illustrations are all Classic Pooh. The flaps really blend in with the rest of the illustrations so it does make for more of a challenge to lift them but my son thinks that is more fun. He also likes that there is a different Pooh character under each flap and that they are all together at the end.

I thought that this book was a good little book for kids to read. Its a cute little story about a little boat just trying to get a long with many interruptions, like storms, bigger boats, and others.

Author of THE REBEL'S PLEDGE, a historical romance novel of Colonial Maryland.

My boys loved Little Toot and his adventures on the water. It is a cute story of a little boat, his dad, and grandpa. A fun story to read together, and a good first reader for preschoolers.

The story of a little tug boat who becomes a hero when none of the grown-ups could come to the rescue appealed to me when I first read this as a child over twenty years ago. As an adult, I think the illustrations appeal to me more than the narration did before.

This book is completely filled with nonsense. Did this guy ever take any classes or instruction on what is he writing about? What qualifications does he have? Spend you money on a real networking book from a qualified author.

Edited 11/22/02.

I bought this over a year ago and was not impressed, initially. However, I am re-reading it in light of new responsibilities, and I'm changing my opinion, slightly.

First of all, if you are a serious system administrator, you should own, read, and work to the principles outlined in this book.

With that said, there were two items that I felt detracted from the presentation.

First was, there was much text devoted to particular operating systems (both *nix and Windows). Whether you're dealing with Linux, Unix, or BeOS, it's the principles that matter, not the implementation.

The second was that cfEngine, a systems configuration engine, was used to demonstrate the principles. This works on Unix - and again, detracted from the overall presentation of the "Principles" in the title I bought it for.

So, bottom line, the book is worth a read. Spend some time working to understand and apply the principles in your environment. If you can implement some of the specifics of the author's techniques, that's all the better.

11/10/02 update: "The Practice of System and Network Administration" is in. Short verdict, it's worth the money.

This work is a good one on the non-technical side of system adminsitration. It does not deal with stuff like HOW to install a system, but the WHYs, such as WHY you want to properly document your installations.

This sort of work has been needed for a long time, since "The Keys to Successful Unix System Management" went out of print. However, this work may be a bit too academic for many admins. They might find the recent "Practice of System and Network Administration" to be a bit better. If you can afford both, do so.

I studied out of 7 different preparation books, and this one, by far is the worst one! The questions in this book are really difficult, tricky and unlike the CLEP exam! The questions in the actual CLEP exam arent tricky like the SAT or GRE, they are straightforward. For some reason, Peterson's has decided to put in SAT-like questions on their practice exam. This book should be thrown out of the market because its NOTHING like the real exams! I would recommend Princeton Review's Cracking the CLEP, and Review for Clep Examination by Comex Systems. The REA also writes really accurate practice exams. If you are taking English, I also recommend you purchase "The Writer's Reference" by Diana Hacker. That was probably the most helpful book in brushing up on your English.

I found the practice exercises in this book to be very helpful, and I did really well when I took the CLEP afterwards.

Looking to maximize my ability on the CLEP tests to avoid taking numerous classes that I have no interest in. If you'd like to get practice on these tests, than this book may help.