<p>Has anyone on CC who is not fluent in Spanish taken the SAT II? If so, how well did your school's classes prepare you, and how did you perform?</p>
<p>P.S. I'm considering taking it in December. I'm not bilingual at all, but I've had 3 1/2 years of Spanish class....</p>
<p>I'm in my fourth year of Spanish and I decided to take the November test "With Listening". I got the Kaplan study book and tried to do some of its practice tests and I realized my vocabulary was tiny compared to that. So I memorized most of the grouped vocab in the back of that book. In my opinion my grammar is exceptional compared to most people in 4th year, so I skipped grammar review because I didn't have that much time. That's where I think I might not very well represent people who aren't fluent in Spanish.</p>
<p>Anyways, I felt the test was easier than the little I had done from the study book. The passages were pretty easy to understand...I don't know if any of the vocab I crammed ever came up. My classes had prepared me well, and obviously the self-study I had done in the past helped me further. I haven't gotten my scores back yet, but I think at worst I got middle 600s. I did skip a few questions and guess on a few, but I answered (confidently) far more than I expected to.</p>
<p>My daughter, a non-native speaker, took the test (without the listening portion) after a year of AP Spanish. Her teacher considers her one of the best students in the class. She hopes to major in Spanish and spent a month one summer living with a family in Spain. She did not prepare at all for the test, concentrating instead on preparing for other tests where she felt weaker. </p>
<p>She got a 690, which is only barely above the reported average. She was somewhat disappointed, but I reminded her that the average is skewed because many native speakers are taking the test -- especially in California where the UCs count SAT IIs more heavily than the SAT I and taking the test gives natives a real edge . I would say that anything above the mid 600s is very strong for non-natives.</p>
<p>parent2009,
do you think the colleges will actually take that into consideration?
I took 4 years of spanish with AP last year, and I too only got in the 600 range. It was horrendous, because I thought the test was much easier than the AP. I am non-native speaker, but it does have 6 at the front</p>
<p>yikes! after these stories, I might turn to World History, where the curve is much better :/</p>