Aleksey Maryansky took an SAT preparation course from Princeton Review over the summer. He has picked two books – “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” – to use as examples in his critical essay. He studied every day of February break, and he is planning to take a day off from school this week for a final review.

Still, he said, he wouldn’t mind a bit more time.

“A lot of people are nervous,” the 11th-grader at Stuyvesant High School said.

Mr. Maryansky and thousands of other New York City students have less than a week left to memorize words such as “perfidious,” “anachronistic,” and “querulous” before Saturday, when they will take the first version of the newly revamped SAT Reasoning Test, as it is called.

The four-hour exam is longer than its predecessor – and to score well on the new, 2400-point test, students will need more sophisticated math skills and will be required to weave topic sentences, literary examples, and polysyllabic words together into a persuasive essay.

The author of “The Rocket Review Revolution,” Adam Robinson, said most of his advice for students is unchanged, despite the major revisions to the test. For example, his old standby rule of “never sacrifice accuracy for speed” is still very much recommended.

He said some students are worried about the new test because they’re being forced to face an unknown – something their older friends and siblings can’t explain to them. Even Mr. Robinson and other SAT gurus are expressing curiosity about the first new SAT as the test approaches.

“On the old SAT, if someone wanted to get, say, a 700 on the math section, I could tell that student you could leave two or three blank, get two or three wrong, and still get that 700. I don’t know what to say to a kid now. Nobody does,” Mr. Robinson said.

He predicted there could be “widespread administrative glitches” in the first administration of the new SAT.

“If you don’t have to take the March test, I would take it in May,” he said, even though for many students that means taking the SAT the same month as Advanced Placement exams. The kinks will be worked out by then, according to Mr. Robinson. Moreover, he said: “After this first test, we can go back to giving them formulas.”

A spokeswoman for the College Board, which administers the exam, said the questions on the new SAT have been tested for years and insisted that there would be no kinks the first time around. The spokeswoman, Jennifer Topiel, acknowledged, however, that nationally fewer students are registered to take the March exam this year than registered in March 2004. This year there are 325,000 registered for this week’s test, 40,000 fewer than last year at this time.

“We think a lot of those students who would normally have taken it in March took it already to avoid the writing,” Ms. Topiel said. “In 1994, when we made changes to the SAT, something very similar happened. Just for the first administration of the new exam, students take the one right before it and right after it. There’s a little drop for that first administration.”

For students who are taking the SATs this Saturday, Mr. Robinson had a few tips: Know basic grammar, including pronoun agreement, verbal tense agreement, parallelism, and faulty comparisons. Also, pick out a few books from school to use as examples in the critical essay.

“It’s hard to sound intelligent talking about a current event unless you’ve given it a lot of thought,” the test maven said. “It’s more likely that you’ve given ‘Hamlet’ a lot of thought and can discuss it intelligently under pressure.”

He said students should avoid personal stories in their essays, and, he advised: “If you’re a science fiction fan, keep that fact to yourself.” He added that “Harry Potter” should also be considered off-limits.

The CEO of the Princeton Review, John Katzman, said: “The essay that everyone’s all freaked out about that’s on the new SAT, good test-takers prepare, and I don’t mean by taking a course necessarily. You should have written 5 or 10 essays and had someone who knows what he’s doing read through them.”

He said “a ton” of students are preparing for the SAT with his company this year.

“Part of it, I think, is fear of the unknown,” Mr. Katzman said. “When the test changes, people are more likely to prep.”

He said students, if they feel prepared, should take the March SAT rather than wait for May.

“At least you’ve had a swing at the plate, and you know what it’s about,” Mr. Katzman said. “Just because you take the test doesn’t mean you have to keep the scores.”

With somewhat conflicting advice, even from experts, students have mixed feelings about the new test. Some said they’re happy about the new essay section because it’s like the essays they write in English class. Others said they’re pleased that the new SAT doesn’t have analogy questions. Still others said they’re worried that the math questions will be tougher.

“I just like writing essays more than regular tests,” a Stuyvesant junior, Ilya Mirkin, said. He plans to take the test in May, though he’s already been taking a practice test every two weeks. He’s aiming for a combined score of 2350 out of 2400.

“I’m not sure about the essay,” a junior at the School of the Future, Ann Fedjinski, said. “I don’t know how they grade it.”

The 16-year-old started an SAT review class at her school this weekend and said she hopes that by the time the May test approaches she’ll be prepared.

Her principal, Catherine DeLaura, sets aside part of the school budget for SAT review. Each student pays about $200 for the two-month Princeton Review class, but some get financial aid and pay even less. The cost of the course is $400. Last year, Ms. DeLaura said, she found the program to be “very successful.”

The principal predicted her students would do well on the new essay section because it has more in common with what they do in school every day than does typical standardized testing.

In addition to focusing on the SATs this year, Ms. DeLaura is urging students finishing biology in 10th grade to take the biology SAT Subject Test, so they have one standardized test under their belt. The 11th-grade English teacher is also working with students on writing college essays, so that they’re ready to go by September.

Citywide, principals such as Ms. De-Laura are trying to boost their students’ SAT scores. Some high schools, like hers, offer after-school preparation classes. Others offer in-house courses during school.

At Health Opportunities High School, for example, students in 11th grade can enroll in classes on the Verbal and Math sections of the SAT. The test prep company Kaplan, owned by the Washington Post Company, trained Health Opportunities teachers through the Young Women’s Leadership Foundation, College Bound.

Millennium High School offers Princeton Review and Kaplan courses for their students each spring as an extended-day class two times a week. The school and its Parents Association subsidize the cost. Students pay a small fee or nothing at all to take the 8- to-10-week course.

At Bread & Roses High School, students can prepare after school through the Columbia University branch of the Let’s Get Ready program, which offers students about 10 weeks of prep workshops conducted by with Columbia students.

In addition, the College Board offers city high-school students free test prep throughout the school year, and students who plan to attend the City University of New York can participate in free SAT prep through CUNY.