<p>Has anyone taken the chem ASE? Any tips for preparation? Is the recommended textbook really useful?</p>
<p>oh dear. yeah. I know plenty who've tried it. I hear most people plumb gave up and walked out of there without finishing the test.</p>
<p>Yeah, supposedly most people walk out of the testing room before it finishes.</p>
<p>:/.</p>
<p>Does not bode well for us.</p>
<p>From Sam's blog on MIT it mentions unless your like an International Chemistry Olympiad winner do NOT take the test.
.........
Don't know how helpful that is but it never hurts to try!</p>
<p>Well, by all means take it.</p>
<p>I'm sure the book helps somewhat, but only insofar as it familiarizes you with the 5.111/5.112-type test questions. Some of the questions in the book are those type, but not all of them.</p>
<p>I would start with the 5.111</a> OCW site, doing practice problems and eventually working my way up to the tests they have posted.</p>
<p>What about the tests in the other subjects? I was thinking about trying to test out of 8.01 (I got a 4 on the E/M so I don't test out w/ AP scores), or 18.02 (which I took at my school but obviously there is no AP for)?</p>
<p>Other [ASEs[/url</a>] historically have had (much) higher pass rates than the chem ASE. The most recent data is [url=<a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V125/N41/41asetable.html%5Dhere%5B/url">http://www-tech.mit.edu/V125/N41/41asetable.html]here[/url</a>]; you'll notice that last year and the year before, the pass rates for 5.111 have been around 10%. That's significantly higher than it used to be... maybe they're making you guys smarter these days. :)</p>
<p>I would still advise studying MIT materials for them, either on OCW or on the class sites themselves. (Some class sites are available only to the MIT community, but you should be able to get around that when you get your MIT ID and ensuing [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/certificates/index.html%5Dcertificates%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/certificates/index.html]certificates](<a href="http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2010/comingup/asexams.html%5DASEs%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2010/comingup/asexams.html)</a>.)</p>
<p>All of the ASEs are MIT-style tests, meaning that there are very few gimme questions and the test mostly seeks to measure your ability to problem-solve quickly.</p>
<p>EDIT, to address what pebbles said below: Yeah, don't forget that these will be your last few days before four years of an MIT education. Do you really want to spend them taking a bunch of tests?</p>
<p>see if you're familiar with 8.01 type material already you might as well just take 8.012. that's what most people in that situation end up doing. you're better off than those of us who haven't seen calc-based physics before, it gives you a great physics foundation and you won't suffer from lack of a challenge for sure.</p>
<p>there's no harm in trying the test, especially if you got solid 5s on the chem and calc APs. You can always walk out if it's hopeless. My son passed it, and he certainly was not an "International Chemistry Olympiad winner". If you don't pass, I've also heard good things about the course.</p>