Dec 3 Physics Official Thread

<p>I am happy with 730 (I was just hoping for above 700), but I'm pretty discouraged by the percentiles... I guess vu<em>pruess</em>06 is right, only the people who actually know the material will take the test (versus the SAT I, which basically everyone has to take). Do colleges look at your scores solely based on percentiles? Because if someone has a 780 on a tough test and his/her percentile is only 85th, I think it's kind of harsh for colleges to just look at that 85th percentile and not consider the fact that 780 is a great score on any of the tests.</p>

<p>I got 770 -- which is okay, cuz I am not into physics much. I wanna get that 800 for chem or bio.</p>

<p>Congrats on all these great scores! What did you guys do to prep? What practice tests are the best? I'm retaking Physics in January</p>

<p>The best thing for me was to only take one test that day, and not worry about any other tests. Princeton Review was a good prep book and whenever I got confused on some parts, I used Kaplan to explain it in much easier terms.</p>

<p>I second vu_preuss's comments. It was great only taking one test. I read Kaplan to get a basic grasp of all of the concepts, and then did most of PR to go into deeper understanding of them. But I think PR is a bit too complicated. You probably will not use all of those formulas.</p>

<p>Well I took Math IIC and Physics on the same day. I didn't really expect a 800 on the physics one. I used PR and Sparknotes. PR is good, but has only two practice tests, which is really bad.</p>

<p>I tried using Sparknotes. It's definitely sort of a middleground between Kaplan and PR, but for some reason I didn't like how they explained things and also there practice tests didn't look (aesthetically) like the SAT II, which kind of drove me off. I also didn't like how Sparknotes divided its chapters with "special problems" as a section and not integrated into others. Go to the Sparknotes website and they have the whole book on their website sans practice tests.</p>

<p>^ The practice tests online had errors. A few questions were missing diagrams. I'd say get the book if you can and don't read the online part that much, it's too tiring on the eyes.</p>