<p>hi im studying for the bio sat 2 this october. i didnt do well on the june one. i only got a 710, and i expected MUCH better. i was wondering if anyone has an idea of how easier or harder the SAT 2 will be for Biology this october. im really afraid that i might not be able to score higher than a 780 this october. for the one in june, i studied like REALLY crazy and i couldnt even get over a 750. so im worried that i might not be able to achieve my goal for october. if anyone has some encouraging comments, or stress relieving comments, or perhaps some advice, plz help me out. thx</p>
<p>Don't sweat it. It's only an SAT II. They're used mostly for placement, anyway.</p>
<p>If you tell me what books you studied and how you used them, I could tell you what you did wrong and how to change it.</p>
<p>I also took the SAT II Bio in June. I got a dismal 680. I studied pretty hard, but I used only the Princeton Review book. Are there any other books that are better for the SAT II Bio. I plan to re-take it in October.</p>
<p>i'm taking it in october also. I'm using barron's. some people on the forum recommended cliff's ap i think. anybody else with an opinion?</p>
<p>i usually like barrons because they overprep you, but the barron's SAT II bio has TONS of stuff you just dont need to know. I am using kaplan and it is the next best comprehensive thing for the SAT II. Im sure people also like cliffsAP</p>
<p>im also using kaplan right now. but before the june sat2, i used ALL THREE books! well i used barron's and princetons, and i just looked at the practice tests on the kaplan. the barron's practice tests were incredibly easy, and kaplan was extremely hard. princeton was somewhere in the middle. the june sat2 was between a barron's level, and princeton's level practice test. so i thought it was easy, but the downcurve this year was so harsh. so im really disappointed, and i hope the october test i can do much better in. im aiming for 780 and up. good luck to everyone else!</p>
<p>I'm taking it in october as well. I am reading through Campbell's 6th edition, one chapter a day. I am then reviewing with princeton review, so by the end of August I will be done. Then throughout september I will be refreshing myself of the information through practice tests, review, etc.</p>
<p>well, i took bio M in june too and only used PR to study. I didnt even look at my notes from class and we use the campbell book too. If you read through ALL of the review material in PR and maybe do some practice tests you will definitely get 750+. I did it the night before the test and got 750+. PR is really the only book you need to get</p>
<p>did all of you guys take AP bio?</p>
<p>No, I took Lab Bio, like an honors bio equivalent at my school.</p>
<p>how did you do on the sat II?</p>
<p>Don't know yet, taking in October.</p>
<p>Campbell's is overkill.</p>
<p>I bought Kaplan in January before the June test (I took it last year as a freshman after Biology Honors). I started reading through it section by section, though not in any order, whenever I could, which meant maybe once a week or less. In late April or early May (just over a month before the test), I started taking notes on everything in Kaplan in a spiral notebook. I mostly used the sections that Kaplan gave, meaning a page for cell organelles, DNA structure, fungi, Mendelian genetics, everything. I broke it down into the most specific topics possible while keeping everything in the same order that the book presented the information in. Just taking notes on every single detail really helped me be able to see how much information there was without all the extra wording. I wrote down even the most basic facts that I knew I wouldn't forget, just so that it could be my ultimate SAT II reference and I wouldn't have to depend on my memory or anything.</p>
<p>When I was almost finished with Kaplan, I bought Barron's and started taking notes on that. However, I noticed that there was a ton of information that wasn't even mentioned in Kaplan. I looked at the preface one day and found out that the author intended for the book to be used for a variety of biology tests that included the SAT II. However, due to this, the author included useless information like a chapter on human diseases (a waste of time - none of it is on the SAT II) and the effects of human intervention on the environment. Useless. So I went to the Collegeboard and found the outline of all the information that is tested on the SAT II. When I went through Barron's, if I encountered something that didn't fit anywhere on the outline (this is where Kaplan does a good job of presenting the information. They use almost all the same section names as the outline. Animals' body structure and function is iffy, since there are no specific criteria in the outline, but I felt that almost everything in Barron's in this area was relevant), I didn't study it or take notes on it. This way, my Barron's notes were actually shorter than my Kaplan ones. Of course, you should still read every single thing in the book, just to make sure you aren't skipping over anything. And by that I mean don't look at the chapter title to decide whether the information will be relevant or not. Instead, read through each section and make sure nothing is important.</p>
<p>I finished taking all my notes maybe halfway through May. I tried making flashcards along the way, but they only helped for some things like animal phyla and other memorization-intense topics.</p>
<p>Throughout late April and May, I would take random trips to Barnes and Noble and just read through any kind of bio book I could find - whether it was an SAT II book or a general survey. I took notes on most of the books I went through, though I honestly did not give any of my notes a second glance. I don't think this is what helped me, though, so I wouldn't recommend going out and taking notes on every book you find. Princeton Review is the only book that taught me how the muscular system worked. Overall, however, it is less comprehensive and therefore better for a REVIEW than Kaplan or Barron's. I took as many practice tests as possible - including everything in Barron's, Kaplan, Princeton Review, Sparknotes, a couple REA (they're the worst in the world. REA has THE worst bio SAT II book ever), and anything else I could get my hands on. Don't use an AP book; there's already enough information to know for the SAT II, so don't waste your time studying even more than you need. Know what you need to, and know it well. However, the multiple choice sections (part I's) of AP Bio tests may help. I did find extreme variation between practice tests. Kaplan was incredibly hard, Barron's (minus the extra info) was easy, etc.</p>
<p>Last tip: Don't go into the test knowing whether you're going to take M or E. You can look through the questions for both sections before you declare which one you're taking. It's true that they ask which one before the test begins, but you can always go back to the first page and change that. Two years ago the bio honors teacher told everyone to take M, since our course is molecular based, but it ended up being a lot harder than E, and people did not do well at all.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about posting all my notes online sometime. I'll post it somewhere here if I do.</p>
<p>Oh, and my preparation got me an 800 on the SAT II (molecular) and a 5 on the AP.</p>
<p>UPDATE: I went through Barron's and found all the sections that are useless: 6.1, 7.5, 8.3, 10.5, 11.1, 11.4, 12.2, and 12.3. Most everything else is relevant.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice theoneo. However, I feel I will be staking with
just reading through Campbells and later PR for review. I usually read through the important concepts a couple of timesl, until I understand its workings. When I understand the concept I tend to be able to memorize it. I started off taking notes, but later found it was easier to just read it once through understanding the concept than writing. This is also why I bought the PR book, by reading through PR after campbell's, I refresh my mind of things that faded from my memory or are not clear. </p>
<p>btw, you need to memorize all the phyla for SAT II bio?? Do I also have to memorize class, order, etc? Or just up to phyla?</p>
<p>The problem is that Campbell's is used for AP classes, and contains WAY too much info (I used it for a couple of bio projects). It's fine if you're just reading it for the main ideas and workings of biology, but there are still details that you need to memorize that won't be made obvious in a textbook and some that won't even be found in Princeton Review.</p>
<p>You need to memorize all the phyla for Monera and Protista (ciliates, slime molds, and algae, I think), and the ENTIRE classification system for Plantae (up to and including monocots and dicots). For Animalia, you should know the order of evolution of all the phyla (so yes, you need to know all the phyla), as well as the classes for the vertebrates subphylum (FARBM).</p>
<p>The trick to the classification system is understanding that everything is listed in the order of evolution and therefore in the order of increasing complexity. That means that fish came before amphibians, which came before reptiles, and so reptiles are more complex than amphibians, which are more complex than fish. I remember using this concept to remember how many chambers are in each animals' heart. Fish have two, amphibians and reptiles have three, and birds (sometimes called aves) and mammals have four. They're in increasing order.</p>
<p>You should also know the entire classification of the human. All the way from Animalia to Sapiens.</p>
<p>theoneo, thank you for all the advice!</p>
<p>one thing, when you say memorize "the entire classification system for Plantae" what exactly do you mean? surely we don't have to know all the species?</p>
<p>also, i know you mentioned that we do not need to know 8.3 in barron's, but what about the rest of the chapter? it seems pretty useless...</p>
<p>ps: i look forward to your notes!</p>
<p>but i dont know where to start.. I only took honors bio.. So i figured id try to learn more information than needed so that i would be even more prepared for the sat II.. by reading or trying to read the AP bio, and i thought maybe i would get a tutor if needed..because i really want to get a 700+ on the sat II and dont know if i can buy just using kaplans, pr, or cliffs AP.. </p>
<p>theoneo.. did you have a really good AP bio teacher, is that why you did so well? and are you going to be a senior next year?</p>
<p>Hey, theoneo, I have another question. Should I study Morphogenesis for sat II bio?</p>
<p>Do I need to know it for AP Biology?</p>
<p>Hey theononeo,
thanks for ur studying advice
i think it will be useful
can u advise me what was wrong with my studing patterns or the books i studied?
so a month before the june test, i went over PR about 2 times
i did not take any notes but simply read it
honestly if the SAT was only from the PR i would have scored higher than 710.
i knew almost everything from THAT PR book
PR was the only book i studied...
so do u think my problem was not studying Kaplan or Barrons?</p>
<p>did ur biology class at high school help u get an 800 on the test?
or was it only the studies who did from the prep books?
i want to know cuz i havent learned much from my ap bio class</p>
<p>weird thing is i took ap bio exam at the same year and scored a 5
but i only scored 710 on my SAT bio
and i actually studied more for the SAT than the ap exam...
but for the ap test i actually studied half of the kaplan book and half of PR cuz i ran out of time...(PR takes less time to study cuz its concise)
so please tell me what i should do to prepare for the november SAT bio exam</p>
<p>also if u have any advice for the math 2c, can you please tell me?
i used same stradegy for math 2c
i only studied PR and scored only 730
i was aiming for 800
when i took practice tests from PR, college board, sparknotes i actually got 780+
but on the test day, i have no idea what happened...
so please help...</p>