<p>the owner of the SoCal Princeton Review operation strongly discourages the foreign language tests until AP year for non-native speakers.</p>
<p>With the SAT 2, the student should always go with their strengths. If their strengths are English Lit and French, they should take those tests and not the Math 1… The curves are different for each exam–and I assure you the colleges that want the SAT 2 know the curves.</p>
<p>As for the English Lit exam being hard, I would argue that a good reader with a good vocabulary is going to find it easy. It requires no prior knowledge of specific books, just an ability to analyze readings that are right there–and a knowledge of the vocabulary used for analysis. (It was my daughter’s best SAT 2.)</p>
<p>The foreign language SAT 2s are often used for placement. If you look at the college’s criteria for placement, you’ll often see that a “low” score can mean going into the second or third year of the language or having the foreign language requirement waived.</p>
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<p>UC is currently reviewing a proposal to drop the subject test requirement, and it will likely happen in the next couple of years.</p>
<p>BarristerDad, it’s a more level playing field with Latin since there are no native speakers. It also has no listening component… for obvious reasons. ;)</p>
<p>dmd77, my daughter did well on the literature test too. So it wasn’t that hard for her because like your daughter she has some natural aptitude in that area, but when people call it a hard test they do so with good reason. Lit and World History are the two tests with the lowest average scores out of all the subject tests.</p>
<p>It all depends on what kids are good at. Both the CollegeBoard and many colleges say don’t give much attention to the curve because it’s thrown off by lots of things (native speakers, kids self-selecting where they’re strongest, etc.) The thing is to try to achieve the highest score you can, is all.</p>
<p>My daughter’s Latin score met a threshold she needed.</p>
<p>The school my D will go to this fall required a math subject test, regardless of what other tests a student submits. So sometimes the advice to only take the SAT subjects tests in areas of your greatest strengths isn’t apt. Make sure to check the requirements of the college.</p>
<p>My daughter has 6 years of Latin … including middle school. She took AP Virgil this May and will be taking Latin 5 next year. She started to study for the Latin subject test in June two days before the test (conflicts and too confident) and suddenly realized she had not looked at grammar and conjugations for over one year … it was not needed in such detail for translating Virgil. I hear you are best off taking the Latin language tests after your third year(±) depending on when you are given the most intensive grammar … if you get too far up the ladder and away from the mechanics, you can be at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>She earned a 720 which sounded acceptable at first until I learned it was only the 78%ile …</p>
<p>She plans to retake the test in Dec. with her better understanding of what she needs to review to improve her score … could not hurt with Latin 5 as well.</p>
<p>She spent a year in Italy and was discouraged from taking the Italian test … but I think she will anyway … the “native speaker” argument.</p>
<p>MQD: very few kids take the SAT 2 in Latin. They are self-selected as the best of the best… because only a few elite schools want the SAT 2 at all. So a 78th% is excellent.</p>
<p>I found Spanish Reading to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I got a 700 on the exam. I test well (near-perfect SATs and ACTs) and finished in 25 minutes (maybe I should have looked it over more), but I was disappointed with my score because I am an advanced-to-fluent speaker.</p>
<p>OK DMD … I had not thought of it that way. I still think she should try to bump it up since she probably can … every little bit helps when SatI Math is a struggle!</p>
<p>MQD, if you daughter wants to bump up her score then that’s great. I’m sure she will since she’s been through the test once already. But don’t worry about the percentile score. Truly. Even the CollegeBoard warns you not to give it much regard, because the curve is so skewed by self-selection. For the Chinese test, for example, an 800 score is still only the 54th%. Your daughter’s 720 is very, very good. Taking tests again to up scores can be a real good choice for a lot of kids, and it sounds like your daughter with her deep background is very likely to see a big uptick… but the percentile score isn’t really a strong reason in itself for a retake.</p>
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<p>I am afraid that this is a case of misinterpreting the percentiles for the SAT Chinese test. </p>
<p>Here are a few numbers: </p>
<p>Mean 764
75th percentile 800
50th percentile 790
25th percentile 760 </p>
<p>This means that there are a small number of students who score really low on this test (probably mis-counseled non-natives) and that the overwhelming majority of students (probably all native) are simply waltzing to a test that is ridiculously easy for them. </p>
<p>Noting that the 25th percentile is 760 should, alas, also indicate that a score of 720 on the Chinese test is … a mediocre score.</p>
<p>Alas … because that illustrated how utterly ridiculous the entire exercise of offering such test is. Except for gaming the clueless admission system at the University of California, there is ZERO merit to this test. Of course, the gaming of the UC system had not escaped the almighty Samsung corporation that appeared more than willing to bribe the College Board with $500,000.00 to “level” the playing field for its past and current citizens. </p>
<p>It is most unfortunate that some students who have to study hard to master an Asian language end up with an impossible task.</p>
<p>xiggi,
I think that the 720 score the poster is referring to was on the Latin test, not the Chinese.</p>
<p>Aside from that, everything you say about the Chinese test is absolutely correct. </p>
<p>What some of the posters are trying to determine is what constitutes a “good” score for Latin.</p>
<p>I think because some of the Ivys and comparable schools will waive the language requirement with a 650 score, that meets the threshold of adequate.</p>
<p>Your thoughts?</p>
<p>Quote:
For the Chinese test, for example, an 800 score is still only the 54th%. Your daughter’s 720 is very, very good. </p>
<p>I am afraid that this is a case of misinterpreting the percentiles for the SAT Chinese test. </p>
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<p>I just posted what was on the back of the SAT score report that came in the mail for my daughter this morning. It said a score of 800 on the Chinese test was 54th%. There is a chart on the back with that data for each subject test.</p>
<p>I may well be misinterpreting it… but if so, what does that mean; 800 is 54%?</p>
<p>It means that if you get an 800, you are in the top 46% or so. In other words, almost half of the students who take the exam get an 800. And according to Xiggi’s figures, almost all of the rest score at least a 760.</p>
<p>That would tend to indicate that the exam is ridiculously easy for native speakers, and that it is a worthless credential for any native speaker. The idea that the University of California system regards it as equivalent to the English Literature test is simply ludicrous. I would think that any admissions committee would simply disregard a score on this test from any kid of Chinese ethnicity, especially if there was no evidence on their transcript of their having studied Chinese as a foreign language. (There must, of course, be some kids of Chinese extraction whose families don’t speak Chinese who study the language.)</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know what the spread would be if all of the native speakers were taken out of the equation. Would the test still be comparatively easy? Is it pitched at a lower level because of the enormous upfront difficulty of learning an Asian language for a native English speaker, compared to, say, Spanish, French, or German? It would appear so, or native speakers would not be able to score so many 800s.</p>
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<p>It seems like that is precisely the case.</p>
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<p>It really is too bad for the kids who are non-native speakers of some of these languages … well grades and APs will need to show the challenge some kids faced</p>
<p>Um, question. As an ordinary white guy who was probably “disadvantaged” in UC admissions by the competition from some Chinese or Korean speakers who scored 800s on Subject Tests that they wouldn’t have scored were those tests not available, shouldn’t there be some reward for being functionally bilingual? After all, it doesn’t really matter if you know a language because your parents taught you it or because you learned it in high school? And speaking a language at home does not equal knowing how to read it, which the Subject Test requires. After all, plenty of immigrant kids know how to speak the language of their original country, but can’t read or write in it.</p>
<p>^
Yes, being bilingual is its own reward.
Nothing keeps you from mentioning it in the application as another facet of your talents, abilities and special qualities.</p>
<p>But having a native speaker’s subject test carry the same weight and as that of a non-native in some kind of admissions rubric is ridiculous. Especially if that particular language test is on such an elementary level, as xiggi has described, while other languages test on a very different degree of difficulty.</p>
<p>I agree: being bilingual is great. Make sure it is on the app as a special ability. </p>
<p>But in a competitive numbers-driven admissions process, counting a test with questions such as that described by Xiggi as equal to something like the English Lit or French/Spanish test is simply–nay, grossly–unfair.</p>