Hi,
I love computer science and took the ap during my sophomore year last year and got a 5. im taking the act (scores for october still havent come out 
) and im trying to take 2 subject tests. Im planning to do math 2 and chinese. I just received my chinese and got a 680 which is awful, it’s the bottom 9%!! Should i still submit the chinese subject test score or try to take it again next year (which will be really hard while im doing college apps). I completely focused on computer science so it’s too late for me to do the chem or bio subject test.
Do universities care if a computer science major performs poorly on a language subject test as it is not directly related to the major? If they do and I do not retake the test, should I still submit it if universities regard the subject tests as optional?
thanks so much,
Do not submit the Chinese score to any college. If the college requires subject tests, can I suggest you do a completely different one? You need to score pretty close to 800 for your test score to matter with Chinese. There are many others, plus I believe this coming summer SAT will be offered, but you have tons of dates in the spring.
Plus, if you are doing the ACT, you probably don’t need any subject tests. Check with the schools you are applying to.
I disagree. If it’s just an extra and you have two strong scores apart from this one, I don’t think there’s any harm and I would not worry about it. The Chinese subject test is notorious for its skewed results; native speakers tend to be the overwhelming majority of those taking it. The score and the percentile is pretty meaningless on its own.
I tend to think that submitting all scores is the best practice but that’s an individual decision.
I’m assuming you’re looking at some selective schools if you’re considering SAT Subject Tests.
Do you speak Chinese at home? I know some schools (Harvard, for instance) do not prefer students taking an Subject Test in a language they speak/learned at home. Look into this. If it applies to you, maybe start studying for an entirely new Subject Test.
If it doesn’t, I wouldn’t stress too much. A 680 isn’t the end of the world. I’d personally retake it before submitting it as I’m confident your Chinese could definitely improve in a year. But first I’d try another SAT II- Literature, Biology, History, etc.
Hi, thank you so much for your response. To answer your questions:
No, I do not speak Chinese at home and only learn it at school. I feel like if I do study for a subject test like Biology or history, I should have enrolled in the AP course for it (which I’m not), so I would be extremely far behind and disadvantaged to study for it.
I guess I’ll try to retake it again next year and see how I do.
Thanks!
The majority of Chinese test takers DO speak the language at home (that’s why the scoring is so steep). Don’t bother trying to retake that.
Yeah, many of my friends who take it are fluent in Chinese as it’s practically their first language. The test is really unfair to those who just learn it at school and don’t speak it outside of class
chinese test percentiles are skewed b.c. of native speakers taking it
1/ Nobody said that life was fair.
2/ The test is not unfair. The test is not curved. per se. You get X # of questions right, you get an 800. The number of questions needed to get an 800 is not based upon the number of native/heritage speakers, although the low percentiles are reflective of that number.