<p>Except in cases where kids MUST take particular SAT Subject Tests because they are required for admission to particular colleges or programs, the decision about which tests to take should be based on</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Whether the kid does well in the subject</p></li>
<li><p>Whether the school’s curriculum in the subject is closely aligned with the curriculum assumed by the SAT Subject Tests.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The only way to find out about #2 is to ask around at the school. Did previous students in course X do well on this particular SAT Subject Test? Is the curriculum a good match for the test?</p>
<p>Surprisingly often, the curriculum is NOT a good match for the SAT Subject Test simply because the people who design curricula have a lot of different needs to fulfill, and helping out the small number of kids who take SAT Subject Tests is way down the list. This happened at my daughter’s high school with Honors Physics. The teacher announced to the students on the first day that some of the topics on the SAT Subject Test in Physics were not included in the county-mandated curriculum that he was required to teach. Students who wanted to take that Subject Test would have to study those additional topics on their own (and the teacher offered guidance on how to do this).</p>
<p>In fact, schools do all sorts of funny things with curricula.</p>
<p>zoosermom, in terms of the SAT World History Subject Test and the AP Euro course (which don’t seem, on the surface, to be a good match), it is possible that your school has added topics to AP Euro in order to meet state or Regents requirements and that, with this added material, the course is a good match for the SAT World History Subject Test. It is also possible that the person who sent you that notice doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. A bit more investigation would be in order (and definitely, have your daughter try a practice test). You may also want to investigate how well other courses that your daughter will be taking match the expected coverage for the SAT Subject Tests. It may be that even though the match between AP Euro and SAT World History is not perfect, it is better than some of the other available options.</p>