<p>Did any of your sons or daughters take the English Lit SAT II yesterday? I was wondering what they thought.</p>
<p>There is a discussion on the "SAT Subject Tests Preparation" thread.</p>
<p>Mine did. She didn't have enough time to finish all of the questions but came back gushing about how great one of the prose texts was, something to do with a child listening in on adult conversations, darkness as a symbol of the fear of growing up, etc... </p>
<p>She also took the US History SAT2 and said she had 20 extra minutes. (Wish she could have used them on English!)</p>
<p>I didn't finish Lit last year and got a pretty high score. If you were pretty accurate and are generally good at lit interpretation, but left a few blank at the end, the curve is still relatively forgiving. I think a lot of people don't finish. It's a hard test though, and I have heard from a lot of people it wasn't what they were expecting. It seems to be sort of a hit or miss thing to me. But if the student thinks they did well except for not finishing five or so, then it isn't like the math ones where not finishing might really hurt you with so many people being both fast and accurate. If that makes any sense.</p>
<p>My daughter is a voracious, selective reader- 800 on CR without prep, and only got a 720 on the English Lit. She said she thought "too hard" and her interpretations differ.</p>
<p>My son thought it was hard. He said he answered all the questions, but probably should not have.</p>
<p>My daughter took it last spring. Said it was quite hard but got an 800. The curve is one of the kindest.</p>
<p>I got a 620 on my SAT II lit when I took it in high school. </p>
<p>I had 5s on both English AP tests, an 800 on SAT I writing, high 700s on SAT I reading, high grades in English at school, etc. In college, I've gotten all As in English/humanities courses at the University of Chicago, which are based on critically thinking about texts.</p>
<p>Anyway, I have no idea if the problem was me or the curve. If your son didn't feel he did well, though, don't fret too much. As long as there's other evidence of his proficiency (such as high grades in English, top AP scores, strong letters of rec, a strong essay), I think most colleges can overlook a low SAT II score.</p>