<p>I sent all my applications and registered for three subject tests on January 25th: Math I, Literature and Biology. I have taken Latin (520), Biology(690), Math II(620) more than a year ago and as you can tell, I did crappy. I did not prepare much for Latin which is kind of obvious and Math II covered topics we had never had in school (I am an international student). Math I is way easier but there are still things we have never covered, so do you have any advice on how to best teach myself? I do have the official SAT subject test study guide and Sat Subject Test I and II by The Princeton Review, but any advice is greatly appreciated! :)</p>
<p>First off, I’m also an international student so I know how you feel (Especially where I come from is a 10 Grade System)</p>
<p>I took the SAT Math II 3 months ago andddddd I really did bad (680). I’m going to take Math II and Physics again this coming test date. I’m not entirely sure if you would take tips from a person like me but I would say that reviewing your mistakes really helps. Also, constant reading helps a lot.</p>
<p>These tips work well for me. I also hope it helps you too!</p>
<p>When doing practice tests it is vital to look at the questions you got right and wrong and find other ways to get the right answer. Also, for the math, if you do many practice tests and compare the tests side by side you can see that the college board loves to test certain topics more than others, you also will see extremely similar questions.
Good Luck : )</p>
<p>^ You guys forget that he never heard of some topics before.</p>
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<p>For Math, those two books are pretty much useless. All you get is some formula, few examples, some easy practice questions and that’s it. Sure, you can memorize how to solve some problems, but once they ask you about the same thing in a different way, you’re pretty much screwed.</p>
<p>So for starters, I suggest you do a practice test and identify which topics you don’t quite understand or came across. Once you do that, go to [Khan</a> Academy](<a href=“http://www.khanacademy.org%5DKhan”>http://www.khanacademy.org), find those topics, learn about them and do some of their practice questions. Luckily, Math II questions are generally easy and don’t require that much knowledge about some of the ‘advanced’ topics such as limits, polar coordinates or matrices.</p>
<p>Take limits for example. They don’t want you to know stuff like squeeze theorem, but rather the basics:</p>
<p>‘a limit is the value that a function “approaches” as the input approaches some value’</p>
<p>They will 99% of time give you some polynomial divided by another polynomial, and ask you what value does a function approaches as x approaches some value ‘a’. Odds are that the function won’t be defined at that value and so you can’t just plug in the number. You need to factor the polynomials, do some cancellations and plug in that value ‘a’ afterwards to find the limit.</p>
<p>My 2 cents. Throw me a PM if you have some further questions.</p>
<p>@youngbin1130- good to know that other people are struggling with it! It just frustrates me to know that I probably would have scored higher if we would had covered some of the topics in school. Then again, I choose to apply, so I have no right to complain. Also going to be taking the test(s) on January 25th. Reading does help, especially since I am taking the Literature Subject test as well. </p>
<p>@jsin413 Thank you! I did notice some questions appear more frequently than others. Still, it’s quite a challenge to figure them out. THe explanations in those books expects me to have some basic knowledge which I do not have. </p>
<p>@killparis I do understand the concepts, I just have trouble applying them. Ironically, my class covers far more complex issues and we never had things such as hyperbolas or ellipses. I will check out Khan Academy, thank you! Is Barron’s really no good? I heard it’s even more challenging than the actual test. By the way, I am a girl. Thank you very much! :)</p>
Also going to be taking the test(s) on January 25th. Reading does help, especially since I am taking the Literature Subject test as well. 
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