<p>Antiquark basically told you everything you need to know.</p>
<p>The only difference is on the writing test. I’m pretty sure you need to take two frosh hums regardless of your score on that. (It’s called the WAFT, if you’re interested.)</p>
<p>For chemistry, they first send you a survey that asks you about your chemistry experience. You are then sent a placement test based upon your responses to the survey.</p>
<p>You only take Bi 1 third term, (or Bi 8 & 9, second and third term, for people who like Bio and have the room for the 9 extra units 2nd term), and while I wish you could place out of it, as far as I know there is no way of doing so (a few years ago you could take a test and write a paper for the class, but that is no longer the case).</p>
<p>The CS tests are pretty easy. The CS 1 test is very doable if you thoroughly understood everything in AP Comp Sci AB. CS 2 is a little harder, but still relatively easy, (at least compared to the other placement tests). (I only took, and passed CS 1, since there is very little need to take CS 2 unless you’re a CS major. Even the non CS programming classes, like the Ph 20 sequence (computational physics) only require CS 1 as a prereq).</p>
<p>The physics placement is not really something to study for (assuming it stays the same), but I can’t tell you more than that. Besides it is only for section placement, which isn’t always very accurate either. Of the 2 supersections this year during first term, only one was actually advanced, and a few of the people who weren’t very good at physics found the subsections to be so dumbed down as to not actually be helpful. Besides, you are free to switch between whatever Ph 1 section you want once you get here. The test to get out of Ph 1a can be taken once you get here. (If you get into a supersection, you will be given the “get out of Ph1a” at the start of frosh camp, everyone else has to wait till classes start.)</p>
<p>The other really important placement test is Math. If you don’t take the Math 1 placement you’ll will get put in Section 1 of Math 1a and Math 8 (a sort of tutorial class for Math 1a) which means you have to waste pass/fail units second term on an extra class. As Antiquark said, if you didn’t just take AP Calculus this year you should study stuff. Even if you’re somewhat discouraged by the test, you should take it and send it in, because there are some students who are placed in a regular section of Math 1a, but are forced to take Math 8 as well, which is still better than having to take Math 0.9, since you don’t have to take Math 1d second term. You can also take the tests to place out of Math 1 in frosh year. In order to place out of any of Math 1, you need to place out of Math 1a and Math 1b, (super hard single variable calculus (1a) and linear algebra (1b)).</p>
<p>If you’re interested in seeing what these courses are like, here is a listing of the course websites:</p>
<p>Chem 1b: [Welcome</a> to the Ch 1 Zone!](<a href=“http://chem1.che.caltech.edu%5DWelcome”>http://chem1.che.caltech.edu)</p>
<p>Physics 1: [Physics</a> Courses<a href=“choose%20which%20class%20you%20are%20interested%20in%20hearing%20about”>/url</a></p>
<p>Math 1a: [url=<a href=“http://math.caltech.edu/classes/ma1a/index1.html][Ma1a”>http://math.caltech.edu/classes/ma1a/index1.html][Ma1a</a> - Fall 06-07] - Calculus of One and Several Variables](<a href=“http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/physicscourses.html]Physics”>http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/physicscourses.html)</p>
<p>Good luck. I hope my reply was reasonably coherent.</p>