<p>Hello,</p>
<p>As I look at the posts on college confidential I see not many good posts about what steps need to be taken to get a 800. I have read numerous posts and threads and have come up with a little guid that I think can be extremely helpful for the 800 hopefuls. Now I must say that I havent officially gotten an 800 but I have a strong feeling I did on the May Sat Subject Test for Chemistry, so I think my advice I provide should be valid. So lets begin</p>
<p>When should I start ?</p>
<p>It all depends on the person. For me, being in AP Chemistry, I thought I was in a good place for the Subject Test, so I started 2 weeks before the test. One week reviewing, one week for tests. If your in AP Chem you should go by that method. If your in honors Chem, I would suggest adding one more week to review, so 3 weeks, anything more would just be a waste and would lessen your desire to actually study.</p>
<p>What book?</p>
<p>This is really a preference thing, but I have had contact with all the books and I must say, Barrons is the best. Barrons review is just amazing. It goes way in depth, and even if it goes overboard, it still prepped me well for the AP Test. I had a great knowledge of the material after spending a week reading the review. Now to their tests, let me say they are HARD. I got a 740 740 740 and 770. I went over the questions I missed, and learned the topics even if they seemed too hard to actually appear on the test. I love practice, so I decided to buy Princeton Review, and let me say there is no review in it, however, it has the most accurate tests but it is a bit harder than the real thing. So i got a 760 790 on the first two tests, and did not take the last one because it was crazy, so I just studied instead. I also used Kaplan, and its useless, nothing like the real thing and it was a waste of time. Ok for the released tests, ill say that I should have started earlier using these but I didn't. THere a great tool and I would suggest using them. I have a link to pdf versions of couple tests by cb, and ill give the link in the resources. I have no clue how good sparknotes is, but from what I see with their other subjects, it probably is going to be harder and good prep. </p>
<p>What area should i focus on?</p>
<p>Like I said earlier, I spent a week just reviewing the material, no practice tests. I reccomend that you spend at least this much time otherwise your not going to do well. See the thing is about the Subject Test for Chem is that its all conceptual. For me, im strong at math so I loved the stuff like stoich which is hardly on the test. So to really hammer down those conceptual topics and a little bit more, you should read Barrons. However, im not saying practice is not important, it is, in fact you need to take at least 10 tests in my opinion to really understand the format and learn from your mistakes. After taking a test, look at your score, see how far you are from your target and see how you need to improve. Then look at your test, see what mistakes you made and try doing the problem again. If you still can't do it, then go to the back read the explanation and don't stop till you really UNDERSTAND the question. One important note to make is that you cannot miss a day to take a test, tests are key and they really help you improve so you really need to stick by your schedule. Lastly I think its important to note that you cannot get cocky. If you get higher than your goal on a practice test, that only means you have potential to do better not a ticket to take it chill. Keep the hard work up and I guarantee success.</p>
<p>This is my first real "advice" thread, comment if you still have questions and hope I was able to help you guys out. </p>
<p>Resources:</p>
<p>Sparknotes Tests </p>
<p>SparkNotes:</a> SAT Chemistry: Test Center</p>
<p>Released Tests</p>