<p>D is registered to take the Math L2 SAT II on Oct 8. But is this the right Math SAT II for her? </p>
<p>She is interested in a biology or biochemistry undergrad major; at this time strongly interested in med school, but is also keeping her options open for law school. She has a respectable mid-700s SAT Math score (same for CR & Writing). She has completed Pre-calc and is currently enrolled in AP Calculus BC. She has been studying (mainly weekends) for more than a month and finds the material on the Level 2 to be not difficult, but time consuming. (She blazes through the Level 1 stuff.) She has had to self teach the Level 2 statistics material because her school doesn’t cover statistics in Pre-calc. This hasn’t been a problem, but she is not as confident with this material obviously. </p>
<p>Her main worry with the Level 2 is doing the work fast enough and completing the exam. She doesn’t feel she will encounter anything that will throw her, but she does worry about having enough time to get through all the questions. Given that she is not majoring in math or engineering, should she opt for the Math Level 1 instead? Does anyone know what Rice prefers?</p>
<p>D’s boyfriend is a biochem major at Rice (junior) and took the Math I test. It sounds like your D will do fine on the II, though. She might want to take both and see how she does. S does not prep for these tests, and got 740 on Math I and 680 on Math II. He had just finished pre-calc, but obviously there was some material on the test that was not covered in his pre-calc course. On this board you will get the feeling that it is easy to get an 800 on Math II, but the kids at S’s prep boarding school don’t see it that way, even though they do well on the math SAT and AP tests. Also, the curves for the two tests are very different. S’s 740 on I was 95th percentile, but an 800 on II is not 100 percentile.</p>
<p>I had similar problems with test timing when I first started studying for the Math IIC. I could only finish about 35/50 problems in the allotted time. But, after taking about 3 practice tests and reading through the answers, I got to the point where I could finish most of the problems.</p>
<p>On test day, I went through the test faster than I had ever done a practice test (nerves, I guess). I finished the whole thing with about 10 minutes left and checked through my answers. I wound up with a 790, which is fine by me, although it kinda sucks that I was one question off of 800. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>Keep in mind that on the Math IIC, the generous curve allows you to miss about 5 problems and still get an 800. I think your D should do Math IIC - with her natural math abilities, she really shouldn’t have to study too intensively for it, and seems very capable of scoring extremely well. And competitive colleges like Rice definitely would like to see Math IIC over IC if given the choice.</p>