I have the Barron’s book and have literally done 0 practice tests in there. I ran out of time on the real thing and made a 770. If i do all the practice tests in Barron’s, am I guaranteed an 800? I truly will settle for nothing less.
In my opinion, if you can get like 730+ on most Barron’s practice tests, you’re pretty much guaranteed an 800 on the real thing
If you “truly will settle for nothing less”, I think you have terrible pretensions about the value of an 800 compared to a 770. I believe MIT has an anecdote somewhere on their website describing how incredibly obscene it is to retake a 750+ subject test.
Nothing in life is guaranteed.
I don;t think MIT is unique in this.
Spend the time on your essays; they will be more helpful to you than another few points would be. If you get rejected with a 770, you would not have been accepted with an 800 IMO.
A 770 is a fantastic score- don’t spend the time studying to retake it. Focus on other aspects of your application.
If you are applying to competitive engineering programs, an 800 can help. Math Level 2 has historically had a very lenient curve, so many programs may expect an 800. This is not the case for most other subject tests, however.
If you are planning to major in math, I have to disagree with the others. According to the statistics on the college board website, getting an 800 puts you in the 81st percentile. Moreover, getting a 770 puts you in the 69th percentile. Getting a 800 puts you higher than another 12 percent of test takers. Also, I’m not sure if colleges know your raw score on the exam. A raw score of 44-50 is an 800 for most exams. So 81 percentile may result from a raw score of 44. However, if you show an 800, how do colleges know exactly what raw score you had.
So just by getting an 800, your score will be higher than 12-31 percent of test takers.
12% if they do 81-69
And
31% if they do 100-69
Best books for 800: either…
-SAT Math 2 Black Book (highly recommended)
-Barron’s (just do some practice tests and you should be fine)
And I’m going to disagree with @ZealousScholar I’ve said this many times. The percentiles for most Subject Tests are depressed because few schools require/request them. The ones that do are generally the elite ones with low admissions rates anyway. As a result, the students who sit for these exams are very self selecting. No AO is going to be sitting on the floor crossreferencing scores vs. percentiles IMO. In any event, IMO, if you get rejects for a 770, I doubt that you will get accepted with an 800.
Having said that, everyone who posts here, including myself and the poster above, is posting an opinion. None of us have the magic crystal ball into admissions.
You risk being seen as a test taking automaton. Don’t do it.
That is true. However, the run of the mill student that sits for the regular SAT probably does not even know that the SAT IIC is.
you’re fine. no need to retake that score.