<p>My daughter is a freshman and she signed up for the SAT Bio test on June 2 because she's taking freshman bio this year, and her school advised the students to take the subject tests right after they've finished with the class. But she's looking through the Barron's prep book, and there is a LOT she doesn't know because it simply wasn't covered in freshman bio. She just now read through a chapter and took the small practice test afterwards and got about 75% correct. She is normally a straight A student so this is not an indication of her typical test scores.</p>
<p>I have heard that you can choose whether to send your scores to colleges or not, so that there is no risk in taking a test even if you are not prepared. But is that true? Or will the scores go on your record, so if you get a bad score you pretty much have to re-take the test? Do colleges look less favorably on a student taking a test more than once with improving scores, than they do on a student who aces the test the first time?</p>
<p>She won't be taking biology again in highschool -- the only option at her school would be IB Biology which is a 2-year course, and it seems stupid to take 3 years of highschool biology instead of chemistry and physics and etc. She will almost certainly be taking IB Environmental Studies her junior or senior year, but I don't know how much biology is in that. So if she is forced to retake the test to wipe out a bad score this time around, she'd probably have to study for it independently rather than relying on what she's just learned in class, which I thought was the whole point of the advice to take the SAT subject tests at the end of the year in which you've taken the class.</p>
<p>Any advice?</p>
<p>The thing about taking SAT IIs after you’ve taken the class is to take them after you’ve taken the AP version of the class. It’s true that freshman biology doesn’t cover many of the topics on the SAT II (plants, hormones, gene regulation). Freshman biology also doesn’t go nowhere near the extent of the knowledge required for human body systems, ecology, evolution, photosynthesis and respiration, genetics, etc. If this is the only biology class your daughter will take in high school, I would recommend not taking biology SAT, unless she plans to study independently with the AP book or possibly Barron’s, if she fully understands everything taught to her in freshman biology (if she’s going to do this, I would recommend flipping through a couple chapters in the AP bio book on plants - there’s absolutely nothing taught in regular bio about plants). </p>
<p>You can decide which SAT II scores you send to colleges. I don’t think they would really care too much if she aced it on the first try or got a better score the second time she took it. </p>
<p>I would really suggest taking some type of more advanced biology class, however. The curve for bio is usually pretty harsh, harsher than the other SAT sciences. It’s very difficult to get an 800.</p>
<p>yeah aqua, I totes agree with everything you said about bio. Regarding scores and colleges though, don’t forget that score choice isn’t accepted at every college- some will require you to send everything (every SATs and subject test you ever took). If she wants to go further in chem or physics, then do those instead. subject tests measure mastery of subjects you’re truly interested in (except for USH :D)</p>
<p>here’s the thing cb published last year on score choice: <a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf</a></p>
<p>What kind of scores is she getting from the practice test, especially the one from the collegeboard subject test book? If she scores more 700+ then she should be ok. If not I would not take it.</p>