Yoel Feinberg
Period 1
For Those of You Taking the US History SAT Subject Test
Format:
The test is 90 multiple choice questions in the standard SAT Subject Test time frame of 60 minutes. This means that you should be answering questions at the latest of a 40 second pace. With SAT Subject Tests, you lose more points getting a question wrong than you do leaving that question blank. This means that guessing is not always the best strategy. The scoring system works where if you don’t answer, you lose 1 point, but if u guess wrong, you lose 1 point AND 1/(1/how many possible answers there were for the question). This means that if there are 5 possible answers, and you guess the question and get it wrong, you lost 1.2 points compared to the 1 point you would of lost by skipping. A general rule is that if you can cross out at least one answer choice, the reward for guessing his higher than the risk. All being said, don’t be afraid to skip questions. If you stick to a fast pace, you will be able to go back and decide your choice of action for skipped questions. Also, when you are not finished with your test yet the time runs out, resist the common temptation to bubble in random answers for the unanswered questions. Other things I could talk about is “reading the question carefully” and “be aware of the tricks”, yet being in AP US History with all the multiple choice tests we took, I have to say that we are more than well prepared.
Differences from the AP Test:
Luckily, the multiple choice questions on the SAT Test require much less complex thinking. There is little to no synthesizing and analyzing on the test. Almost all of the questions test your factual knowledge of the subject. While this is great for people who read the textbook and studied events within history, the argument can be made that with more fact-based questions it may be harder to eliminate possible answers because the test gives you less context. If you study the key facts within US History, you will do great on the test.
Sources:
Thanks for this post! Really valuable information for anyone taking the subject test. The differences between the subject test and AP test are also really important to note, especially the point system.
ReplyDelete