Prep for Math II and SAT Math at the same time?

alwaysawriter
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:03:13 +0000

If you feel like your AP Lang class and teacher are giving you good practice with reading critically, and if you consider yourself good with English in general, then the Literature Subject Test should be fine.

And yes, I would say that poetry comprises probably a good third or even half of the Literature test, so you should definitely familiarize yourself with the different poetic genres and practice reading poetry–it is much more difficult than prose.

Sorry, I haven’t taken either of the Biology Subject Tests, so I can’t help you with that. However, I can say that the Literature Subject Test questions are NOT EXACTLY the same as the AP Lang and Comp Exam questions, but they are similar enough. I’m guessing that it’s a similar situation for Bio as well. So it’s up to you whether you want to get a book for the AP and another for the SAT Subject, or if you want to just go with AP and hope that the Subject questions are close enough. I don’t think either option will hurt any more than the other; personally, I like to know the difference, and so I bought one for AP and one for Subject. shrugs

The keys to doing well on the Math II Subject Test will be 1) knowing your subject material as thoroughly as possible and 2) being able to work through that material as quickly and efficiently as possible. And like I said before, if you have a natural aptitude for math, then any math test will seem easier to you than it does for other people. So you can’t rely entirely on what other people are saying about any given test. Maybe the people you’re talking to are good at math, or good crammers, or geniuses, or whatever. But they’re not taking the test for you, are they?

None of this advice is really going to make sense to you until you try the tests.
In order to give yourself a better sense of how much studying you’ll need to do for all your tests, you should just TAKE A PRACTICE TEST NOW for the SAT and for your Subject Tests. You can find practice tests in prep books. Depending on how you score now and how far away or close that number is to the score you WANT to have in the spring, you’ll have a better understanding of what the questions are like and how much (or how little) you already know. And then you can divide up your time accordingly. Trying the tests out for yourself is the only efficient way for you to know what will work and what you need, rather than just having other people tell you what they thought of it.