In preparation for the ACT, I have studied the Cliffestestprep ACT book closely. And in the process, I have seen MISTAKES in the answers.

On page 33, "5 x 4=25".
on page 159, question #11 on practice test2, the answers are mistakenly copied from question #10...so the answers don't make any sense for question #11!

These are just two mistakes that I've seen, but judging by that, I wouldn't be suprised to find more. I wish I could return the book, but since I already marked it up, I cannot. Don't buy this book, get a more helpful ACT resource. This book has 4 practice tests, but because of the mistakes, I am relucant to go further.

Finally, the practice problems are more difficult than real ACT problems: CLiffs give you long-winded and confusing explanations for problems you don't even need to know for the actual ACT. I'm sure you can find more consice explanations in other resources. In short, this is not the best choice for getting ready for the ACT.

UPDATE: I recently checked out Princeton Review's CRACKING THE ACT 2002; I highly recommend it for great strategies, tips, and practice material. I also recommend GETTING INTO THE ACT, which is the only review book sponsored by the ACT itself. This is the ONLY book with REAL full-length ACT tests from a few years back;thus, you get familiar with the format of the test and its degree of difficulty. These two books should be all you need to prepare...going through these books..I realized just how useless CliffsTestPrep ACT was.

Do not buy this book if you are looking for a guide to prepare for the ACT...this is because the book only has about 15 pages of review per test. So, if you need a review book, I suggest that you go to the Princeton Review book, which does a pretty good job.

However, if you have used up all the practice tests in the book that you are currently using, then I strongly reccommend this book. The book offers four practice tests (even though the cover says it offers two tests.) Each answer is fully explained, which makes the tests a lot better than the other books.

So, if you need review, don't add this book to your cart. If you need more tests, this book is a very good source.

I am a guidance counselor and have used this book to help students prepare for the ACT. I like how the book lets you take practice tests, a little at a time, if you choose. Then helps you analyze your mistakes: were they lack of knowledge or careless mistakes? Then you can analzye your careless mistakes and learn to avoid them. After having a workshop with seniors using this book, one of the girls raised her reading score from 18 to 29. As with all books, you have to READ it, STUDY it, and APPLY it, if you want results.

I looked for some specific information in this book and found that there were *many* typos in the examples I examined. I contected the publisher (O'Reilly) and they told me that they rushed this to press. (Not at all typical of O'Reilly and hopefully not a harbinger of things to come.)

I work as a web developer and I use this set all the time. I can take it with me to help other developers and/or read it while away from my computer. It is very easy to locate what I need and allows me to find what I'm looking for when I don't quite know exactly what I'm looking for. It's not the end all to Perl references but it is the best hardcopy out there so far!

I must be honest, I'm writing this review mostly to netralize the bad reviews thus far.

That this book is on a CD only begins to demonstrate the effectiveness of it's contents, but this IS indeed an important feature.

I only wish this came out sooner (or I bought it sooner), when I was web-designing free-lance a couple of years ago.

I'm surprised the reader who said Riesman's book was hard to read had the basic skills even to write a review. The Lonely Crowd is not only easy to read, it's extremely easy to read. Hegel and Heidegger are hard to read. Quine's Word and Object and Carnap's Philosophy and Logical Syntax are hard to read. In terms of sociology, I guess Parsons had his moments. But Reisman? Come on. That reviewer must have had a steady diet of Harry Potter books to think that The Lonely Crowd is difficult to get through.

A classic of American sociology, Riesman's book still rings true to a great extent in its preternatural sense of the (then) coming break between the modern and post-modern era. These days Reisman's characterological framework of social personality types -- tradition oriented, inner-directed, other-directed -- seems too pat, too simplistic, too culturally bound. Nevertheless, whether one believes in it or not, the framework remains so compelling that the reader begins to group all one's friends and acquaintances in one or another of the categories. It's the power of imaginative writing that holds our attention in spite of the too neat framework, proving once again that fiction is always more compelling than sociology. Crisp and evocative metaphors work every time! Two memorable metaphors -- the inner-directed person has a "gryoscope" implanted in him by his parents and his society, while the later other-directed personality is equipped with radar to seek out social cues, are deservedly famous. So are his distinctions between the way these different cultures control their members through negative self-assesment: tradition-oriented = shame; inner-directed = guilt; other-directed = anxiety.

To his credit, Riesman bends over backwards to say that people can belong to all categories at once through various manifestations of their characters. Nevertheless, the categories are so simple, and feel so descriptively true, that the tendency to believe in the categories and Riesman's historical sketch of how each comes about almost our overwhelms skepticism. Almost. But as Todd Gitlin points out in the foreward, Riesman's theories are tied to a population theory (other-directed societies could supposedly be distinguished by their lower birth rates in combination with economic prosperity) that was almost immediately overturned by the baby boom in the years immediately following the publication of the book. Riesman himself in the reprint of his introduction from a previous edition points out the flaw in the population projection, recanting this part of his theory. And although the flaw is minor in the sense of the meat of the book -- psychologizing various populations at certain stages in their economic development, it does began after awhile to discredit even the psychologizing. For so tightly does he link the other-directed to a phenomenon which is almost immediately proved wrong, that it calls into question everything else he contends. Remember the book "The Population Bomb" which predicted in the 60s that world would soon be overrun with humanity? It didn't take into consideration famine, disease, war -- the usual plagues of humanity. There is nothing so humbling as building a theory on bad demographic predictions.

Whether or not the theories about social character are true, they were extraordinarily influential at the time, shaping ideas about the American character and American society that persist fifty years later. There are parts of this book -- most of it in fact -- that feels vital and true to this day. The question is, however, is this because the ideas contained herein have become so dissolved into the cultural discourse that they have become true in the retelling, or are they literally true for their time and so remain?

That's part of the fun of reading this old chestnut -- deciding for yourself!

This is a superb book, a masterpiece of American sociology. Riesman's eye for detail and his capacity for historical sweep are prodigious. This is not a dry book, though it is probably more academic than your average customer can stomach; but Lonely Crowd stands with the work of Dwight MacDonald, C. Wright Mills, Daniel Bell as a vade mecum to the character of our country. Don't be fooled by this other review --Riesman added to the language with his descriptors "inner" and "outer" directed; if you are raising children, fending off Disney and Time Warner, these are critical weapons in your arsenal.

Logical errors run rampant throughout this book. Definitely stay away from it.

If you have just one week to study, and plan to spend less than $30. This book with ETS Official Guide is what I recommend you to get. Cliff Notes gives a brief review, give you one diagnostic test. If you have $100 budget and months to study for the test, this book would like be as helpful as other books. However, If you only have one week and just want to have a brief prep, this is a must have.

It's worthy every cent you invest on it. Despite the fact that it's not as fashionable as some others like Kaplan, Princeton, etc. Cliffs does a very serious job, covering all GMAT subjects and providing many good questions with explanations.

The book does not have the in-depth coverage that expert SQL users would expect. If you are a beginner then it may suit you just fine. There are not enough nuts and bolts for people like me who really need the complete reference book.

A very good book on Oracle8 administration, performance tuning, backup and recovery. Full of well organized useful information.

I am primarily a Solaris system admin who wants to learn more about the inside of Oracle and what it takes to keep it up and running. The O'Reilly titles were a major disappointment since most of their stuff usually rocks, but let's hope for better 2nd editions on those along with some good tutorial material. The Oracle Press titles are totally disorganized and a major embarassment! David Austin has put together a great book with Using Oracle 8, and if you have to suffer through NT (and thank God I don't), he has plenty of material on Oracle Enterprise Mgr (all of chapter 4). Then he moves on to the nitty gritty, with a Unix-oriented or at least generic "pure Oracle" approach. I have spent two weeks browsing and reading various Oracle books and good choices are hard to find. I strongly recommend Alomari's "Oracle8 and Unix Performance Tuning" as well.

I found stale recounting of very well-known facts about 20th century technologies and their economics, with no insights. Since it covers the gamut from plastics to jet engines to microprocessors, and it's only 200 pages in a fairly large typeface, I wasn't expecting historical depth. But I was expecting at least one fresh idea. I bought it on the strength of a much earlier book by Nathan Rosenberg (about technology in the economy of the 19th century). I was disappointed. I get the feeling the book is intended as a brief survey for people who just came down in the last shower -- college freshmen born in the 1980s. I'll bet they find it kinda stodgy.

Thankfully, this book is more accessible than the blurb would lead one to believe. A useful summary.

I purchased this book under the impression that I would find new exciting things to cook on a college student's budget. However, this book contained all the things most college students already are eating. One example was to add extras to macaroni and cheese. I was especially disappointed by the suggestion of ordering a pizza in this cookbook.