<p>I'm going to take the Math II test on 6/6/09, and I need to know what the best plan for study is: I'm a pretty good math student, but I've forgotten a lot of Algebra I and geometry, and haven't gotten to some topics in pre-cal. So I need a book that great at reviewing all the concepts that are going to be tested (aiming for 800). I was thinking about buying Barron's guide, and then doing some practice test from the College Board. Is Barron's good enough at reviewing to use it as the sole resource? And how many practice tests do you guys take? Lastly, I've heard a lot of people taking about tricks on their calculators - where can I learn those?</p>
<p>Barron’s is very detailed and covers everything that might possibly appear on the test, though I don’t really like the organization of the book. It also has a few chapters on calculators and programs you can put into your calculator, so definitely look at that. If you can get in the 700s on the Barron’s practice tests, chances are you’ll get a high 700 or 800 on the real exam. It can be used as a sole resource, but if you find it somewhat confusing, you can try reading Princeton Review’s, which is easier to read.</p>
<p>Immortalix’s advice is good. I would be careful with CB’s practice tests, I found the real test to have much harder questions; don’t know if other people thought the same thing.</p>
<p>So what practice tests do you recomend? I’ve heard that Barron’s is good to learn the material, but that the tests are way to hard, thus you can’t get a good grasp of your score range.</p>
<p>I didn’t find the actual test much harder than the CB practice tests. Maybe slightly, but nothing significant. The CB tests should be a decent indication of how you will do on the actual test. If you can consistently score over 740-750 or so on Barron’s practice tests (note that the 3rd and 4th one’s are harder than the 1st and 2nd, if memory serves), you’ll have a 98% chance of scoring 800 on the real thing.</p>
<p>I plan on taking the Math II exam on that date too. (Im in IB Maths SL) My dad got me the sparknotes book, but is there one better? Would I be better off just practicing with old IB Exams?</p>
<p>it doesn’t really matter what book you use as long as you get some practice with the math problems.
the thing about math is you can’t study for it–you have to practice</p>
<p>I used Princeton Review and got great scores on it. However, if you’re a good math student, the main thing is just to get as many practice tests as possible so that you can learn which things you’ve forgotten (or never really learned) and how to do them.</p>
<p>Yeah, I order Barron’s guide, because I know I really need to review a lot of algebra and geometry. I did a sparknotes test online, I got like a 660 (had to leave like 14 blank), which wasn’t too bad because I know I could have gotten another 5-6 questions, if I had remembered my algebra & geometry. Plus there were about 5 questions we haven’t even covered yet in my pre-cal class (imaginary numbers, polar coordinates, solid geometry, vectors, limits, and logs)…</p>
<p>However, I got like 9-10 trig questions right, which makes me feel good, because that’s what we’re covering in pre-cal right now… </p>
<p>Anyways, I think I know my weakness, so I’ll go back and spend about a month studying the concepts, etc, then I’ll start doing a bunch of practice tests.</p>
<p>I got the Kaplan review book, and honesty I thought it sucked! It was extraordinarily inadequate as far as actually reviewing the topics…</p>