...P>This book was slighty better then Barron's TASP guide. The math drills have answer keys to them ... and better explaintions for the math. But it's still very lacking in the math. I suggest getting a NON-TASP math study guide instead to help you.

The Reading and Writing Section of almost all books I have used are about the same all are very exceptable and useful. EXECEPT for the "Offical TASP study guide" which is just MEGA ALL AROUND BAD! ...
I myself am returning to school after 10 years. . ... If your college has it ask to take the ACCUPLACER TEST! It's easier and less costly. ... ...
I give The Best Test Prepartion for the TASP study guide 2 1/2 stars, math section is slighty better but not by much.
I give Barrons TASP book 2 stars due to it's poor math section.
I give The Offical TASP Study guide 0 stars! ...P>Remember take the ACCUPLACER TEST instead if your school has it!! Good luck all on your test.

This study guide was a tremendous help and I credit it with giving me the tools to help me pass the TASP. One note: on the tope of page 152, there is a misprint in the example for (2). It should be the square root of 80 minus the square root of twenty , not the square root of 90 minus the square root of twenty.

I purchased this book in order to review the math section for the Tasp test. I was taking the Tasp in order to enter the alternative certification course for school teachers. Since I did not have Geometry in the past and couldn't remember quadratic equations, I needed some real help. I spent around 16 to 20 hours reviewing the information provided in this text and passed the tasp on my first attempt. I scored a 93% (280 out of 300 possible) on the math section, well above what was required to pass and that was my lowest score. I recommend this book to anyone preparing for this exam.

My mother in law was less than impressed when I made a special meal for her using the recipes from this book. I spent the rest of the week in the doghouse.

My grandmother used the window cleaner recipe on page 95 and said it worked better than anything she has ever purchased. This early edition has more hints that you would most likely ever need, but there are newer editions. I like this one as it is easy-to-use and has a "from your grandma" hint style. There is a nice index so you can find out how to clean up just about anything.

Ohhhhh.....Where to begin? I'll start with co-editor Terri Windling. Her opening essay on the year in Fantasy was almost enough to make me hurl down the book in irritation. If she said "Magic Realism" one more time....I lost track at 37. Unbearable. Just unbearable. I have a pretty steadfast rule that, no matter how bad a book may be, I read EVERY SINGLE WORD. Every word. No matter what. I had to skim through Windling's essay, because it was either skim or put my fist through the wall. "Magic Realism. Magic Realism. Magic Realism." Ugh.

Ellen Datlow's essay is slightly more interesting, and the sections on Media and Comic Books were very well done. Now, on to the stories themselves.

I've read a few of the previous Year's Best volumes, and it always bothered me how the book slants towards Fantasy over Horror (Terri Winling is the Fantasy Editor, Ellen Datlow the Horror Editor), but this edition is WAY over the top. Out of 35 stories, Windling's name is on over twenty. Her tastes run towards oblique, overwritten, pretentious tripe, and strange poetry. One of her selections, Gerald Vizenor's Oshkiwiinag: Heartlines on the Trickster Express put me beyond the newfound sacrilige of skimming. I actually had to skip the remainder of the story after five endless, pointless pages. I have never read such strange shizznit in my whole life. I literally had NO idea what he was writing about. Ugh. Another Windling pick (Among The Handlers, by Michael Bishop) is endlessly long, written in an awful hillbilly dialect, and is neither Fantasy or Horror, but IS god-awful. I'll avoid Vizenor and Bishop like the plague, thanks to these stories. We also get other Windling-picked classics like Birthdream, (A poem about childbirth, not Horror or Fantasy, but also awful. If I wanted bad poems, I'd get a poetry book.) Caribe Magico, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (A travelogue. For God's sake, a travelogue! Not Horror, not Fantasy...but as Windling says...MAGIC REALISM! Code for "Pretentious story that makes no sense."), and Beckoning Nightframe by Terry Dowling, about a woman who is scared of her neighbor's open window. FOR 16 PAGES! UGH. Her only decent choice is Little Beauty's Wedding, by Chang Hwang. It's an unforgettable story.

Ellen Datlow fares better in her choices. The Secret Shih Tan (By Graham Masterson), Never Seen By Waking Eyes (By Stephen Dedman), and the grotesque Three Bears pastiche "Ursus Triad, Later" (By Kathe Koja & Barry N. Malzberg) are all incredible, and I'm glad to have discovered writers I wasn't familiar with, but the overall feeling I had when reading the book was one of irritation with the all-encompassing pretentiousness of the package. I'd say the stinky outweighed the good by 90%. I'm VERY sorry that I've already purchased the next four volumes....But at least I've learned to skim & skip!

Interesting collection of writers, some famous and some unknowns, but all in all not a real page turner. Some stories I couldn't even finish I got so bored. Some were so good I got goose pimples. Go figure.