So, I won the Sherlock book test in the Saturday Night Contest. Thought I'd post up a quick First Impression style review since it arrived yesterday.
First - I'm very picky about book tests. I personally think that a book test should look like this:
Volunteer picks up book, opens to any page, and begins reading. Performer begins telling them what they are reading/looking at.
To that end, the Doppelganger book tests by Prof BC are, in my opinion, the best out there.
But they're also upwards of $300.
The Zandman books are about $35 - and they're pretty good.
The stuff I didn't like:
The performer has to handle the book. For me, this is almost always the thing that deters me from a book test.
It's mostly limited to the first word on the page. This is the other thing that almost always deters me from a book test. I say mostly because there's two pages that have more options.
It can't be read like a normal book. I know that seems picky, but since there are book tests out there that can be read like a normal book, I am OK with being that picky.
Things I do like (because I prefer to end positively):
The handling is minimal and reasonable - easily justifiable. You flip through pages, they call stop at any time. If you want to use the "extra" reveals on the two special pages, it still looks like you flip through the pages and stop when they tell you to.
It's not the same two pages repeated over and over (which is an extremely lazy way to do a book test if you ask me).
It works in tandem with the Gatsby test, which is pretty neat.
It does have two pages where more word reveals are possible. They teach a simple PA for that, but I'd probably come up with something more visually oriented as I have never seen a PA that didn't seem like total fishing to me.
All in all, these book tests seem like a solid way to start working on this kind of material for someone who's not totally sure it's for them. Once you get comfortable performing with something like this, look into Doppelgangers.
First - I'm very picky about book tests. I personally think that a book test should look like this:
Volunteer picks up book, opens to any page, and begins reading. Performer begins telling them what they are reading/looking at.
To that end, the Doppelganger book tests by Prof BC are, in my opinion, the best out there.
But they're also upwards of $300.
The Zandman books are about $35 - and they're pretty good.
The stuff I didn't like:
The performer has to handle the book. For me, this is almost always the thing that deters me from a book test.
It's mostly limited to the first word on the page. This is the other thing that almost always deters me from a book test. I say mostly because there's two pages that have more options.
It can't be read like a normal book. I know that seems picky, but since there are book tests out there that can be read like a normal book, I am OK with being that picky.
Things I do like (because I prefer to end positively):
The handling is minimal and reasonable - easily justifiable. You flip through pages, they call stop at any time. If you want to use the "extra" reveals on the two special pages, it still looks like you flip through the pages and stop when they tell you to.
It's not the same two pages repeated over and over (which is an extremely lazy way to do a book test if you ask me).
It works in tandem with the Gatsby test, which is pretty neat.
It does have two pages where more word reveals are possible. They teach a simple PA for that, but I'd probably come up with something more visually oriented as I have never seen a PA that didn't seem like total fishing to me.
All in all, these book tests seem like a solid way to start working on this kind of material for someone who's not totally sure it's for them. Once you get comfortable performing with something like this, look into Doppelgangers.
