SAT Study Guide Errors

MYFOXNY.COM - High school seniors all over the country are getting ready to take the SATs - those all important tests for getting into college. Many kids buy study guides to help them prepare. But Fox 5's Arnold Diaz exposes that some of those guides contain the wrong answers!

"I look at it as an educational embarrassment," says math tutor Jeffrey Newman. He tells Fox 5 he was shocked to find that “Mastering the SAT Math” published by Wiley, has lots of mistakes in it. He tells us, “I uncovered a total of 36 errors in this book."  CLICK HERE FOR SOME EXAMPLES

Thousands of students have bought “Mastering the SAT Math,” a $15 SAT prep book published by Wiley a major educational publisher. The book claims it will help "improve your score" on the SAT.

But Newman is concerned it could do just the opposite, "I believe that a student's score can actually go down as a result of going through that book.”

These are some of the errors found in the “SAT Math Workbook” published by Barron’s, that were found by Jeannette Gerber from SMART TEST PREP:

CLICK HERE FOR  LIST OF ERRORS

And this is the form the College Board put out listing the errors found in the 2nd Edition of “The Official SAT Study Guide”:

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE ONE

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE TWO

If you think you might have an affected book:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW IMAGES OF THE COVERS

Barron’s says it is offering a free replacement copy to anyone who calls or writes to it about errors.

Barrons Educational Series, Inc.
250 Wireless Blvd
Hauppauge NY, 11788
1-800-645-3476 / 1-631-434-3723 fax

Wiley the publisher of “Mastering the SAT Math” tells us any consumer who purchased a copy can return it; details about how to do so can be found at:

THIS WEB SITE

Fox 5 asked Jeff Melomo and Matt McDermott, high school seniors to find the answers to a couple of the questions we selected from the Wiley prep book.

The problem involved dividing and multiplying fractions. It's not difficult to solve, in fact both seniors figured it out in a couple of minutes. The problem is the answer they both came up with is not in the answer key, but it is actually the right answer.

Another question asks you to calculate the time it takes for a car to get from point a to point b. While the question asks for the answer in minutes, the answer key gives the correct answer in seconds, which is wrong. Senior Jeff Melomo says, "This could really screw kids up in preparing for the test. “

Jeffrey Newman emailed Wiley after finding what he calls, "flagrant and misleading errors" back in February 2009. He told Fox 5, "I was looking for Wiley to perform a total recall, just recall the book, pull it all back."

But after the math tutor alerted Wiley to all the errors he discovered in the book, it took the publisher almost six months to confirm his findings. And then instead of recalling the book, Wiley told Mr. Newman it would simply stop shipping any more copies and that the matter was resolved and closed. That’s when the math tutor contacted Fox 5.

Fox 5 reporter Arnold Diaz went to the company's Hoboken, N.J. headquarters looking for answers from William Pesce, Wiley's longtime CEO.

But he was told by Susan Spilka, Wiley's Communications Director that Mr. Pesce was too busy to speak with him. As for the large number of mistakes in the book, Spilka blames it on the books author, Jerry Bobrow. Wiley admits the publisher allowed him to do his own fact checking.

Diaz asked, “To allow the author to edit his own material? Why would a publisher ever do that... Especially a book like this where accuracy is so important?”

Spilka responded, “…The author who is now deceased…had written many, many books in the past.” She adds they trusted the author and now admits that was mistake.

The spokesperson says, "We stopped shipping immediately."

Interestingly, not longer after Fox 5 began asking questions, Wiley announced it would recall the book and offer refunds to anyone who bought it. The publisher also posted what it said was a corrected version of the book on its website, but incredibly math tutor Jeffrey Newman found more mistakes in the corrected version.

The embarrassed publisher has since taken the book off their website. But Fox 5 uncovered it's not just the Wiley SAT study guide that's got lots of mistakes in it. The Barron's SAT study guide, “SAT Math Workbook” also includes dozens of mistakes.

Jeannette Gerber a tutor who helps students prepare for the SAT’s from SMART TEST PREP uncovered the errors in the Barron’s SAT guide, she says “it's not fair towards the students."

Gerber says she was amazed to discover 37 errors in the Barron's SAT math workbook, "Someone must have done a really bad editing job."

She recently contacted the publisher about them. A senior editor at Barron's Educational Series--based in Hauppauge, NY tells Fox 5 that 20 of the mistakes were “typesetting errors” and that the corrections will be made in the next printing of the book.

Barron’s says it’s offering a free replacement copy to people who bought the book.

As if preparing for the SAT’s wasn’t difficult already, now students have to navigate through big mistakes made by major publishers.

It’s frustrating for seniors like Matt Melomo, "It's making kids think wrong and teaching them the wrong way to do stuff.”

And annoying for tutors like Jeannette Gerber, "Its frustrating cause I sometimes have students who come to me and say I couldn't do this question, this doesn't make sense.”

Arnold Diaz inducts both Wiley and Barron's into the Fox 5 Hall of Shame for failing to do their homework.

Interestingly, the company that makes the SAT tests, The College Board puts out its own prep book called, “The Official SAT Study Guide” and guess what? Inside the current edition there's a separate sheet listing the 20 mistakes that were discovered in this book after it was printed. The company has also posted the corrections online. If you've got a story idea for Arnold Diaz at Fox 5 in NYC you can click here to send him your tip. Or call him at 1-877-TELL FOX5.