How did you do on your SATs?

[theorigamist]

When we were getting ready for the English Literature test we saw some sample essays that got perfect scores.  They sucked.  A lot.  If you could do half a decent job on the multiple choice, I would bet the Lit was the 5.

[TracerBullet]

All the History Exams were a cakewalk, same Psychology and Stat (I didn't Psychology and still got a 4- Go Standardized Tests Go!)

Lit and Language were easy, didn't take the AP Language class but still managed a 5 on both.

Physics was quite tough, only got a 4, and I thought I had worse than that.

Didn't take Calc, never took it, never will.  I've heard it's one of the harder exams.

US Government pissed me the fuck off.  I came out of it knowing I had a 5, but the mother fuckers gave me a 4.  I still have no idea how they did that.  Bastards.

All in all, AP's shouldn't be that tough, so long as you learn the shit, and don't freeze up on tests, it really should be pretty easy.

Oh, 1470, first time, staying up till 3 in the morning playing Counter-Strike the night before, and never taking any classes.  I sorta wish I had done all that shit so I could have gotten a 1600, cause I know I could have if I'd tried, but whatever.  No biggie.

Go to community college if you can swing it.  Saving money=tech.

Pat

[theorigamist]

Lit and Language were easy, didn't take the AP Language class but still managed a 5 on both.

I've never seen a school offer a course on just the Language test.  My AP English course was just Literature, too.  But those tests are so subjective that if you can figure out what buzz words the people are looking for, you're going to get a five.

Physics was quite tough, only got a 4, and I thought I had worse than that.

I agree.  I was getting A+ in physics all year long, but I'm pretty sure the AP test made me its bitch.  (I won't know until July.)

Didn't take Calc, never took it, never will. I've heard it's one of the harder exams.

Calc AB was easy, but Calc BC was tough.  It wasn't physics-style impossible, it was just tough.

All in all, AP's shouldn't be that tough, so long as you learn the shit, and don't freeze up on tests, it really should be pretty easy.

I would say that's more true of SATs, or just the multiple choice sections of the APs.  A lot of those are just common sense, but for the essay sections of the APs you really need to know your shit.

[kirdape3]

I've seen the Physics exams.  They're about as hard as a good first-year introductory Physics course's final - they can't test you on real introductory Physics because you won't know anywhere near enough math to understand them.

[Dante]

I've seen the Physics exams.  They're about as hard as a good first-year introductory Physics course's final - they can't test you on real introductory Physics because you won't know anywhere near enough math to understand them.

I took both physics exams, Mechanical and E&M, and they had all the appropriate calc. (at least for an intro physics course).  Of course I had BC calc also.  My first term in college, they only offered the intro course (which had intro to mech and E&M), so I took it for the easy A.  No additional math required...of course that was in 1995.

I think the problem teaching the AP physics classes in high school was that you needed a good teacher for the first physics class (who knows how to teach the concepts well).  We had two physics teachers teach the junior year physics class.  Whoever had the teacher who ended up teaching the AP class did REALLY well on the AP test.  The people who didn't generally didn't do as well.  You also need good math teachers at the pre-calc and calc level.  That's why most people do so poorly in physics, because the teachers have you memorize equations and crap like that instead of learning when to apply certain concepts and techniques.  Similarly for math, most teachers teach math in a memorization style.

Bill

[kirdape3]

Basic calculus literally doesn't count.  If you can't do differential equations in all of their nasty forms, forget it.  Also, once you get into any Quantum Mechanics, you'd better know your matrix operations and operator mechanics very well since that's the entire notation of the subject.  Vectors and tensors are key too.

Classical Mechanics mostly is all about the differential equation, but you can get around that sometimes depending on what you're exactly doing.  Most people won't get to those levels of math until their second year of college - even fewer will ever get enough linear algebra.

[kl0wn]

*unzips his pants*

[walkingdude]

The physics C exams were certainly the hardest APs I took (although not my worst scoring ones since my handwriting kills me on essays since any handwritten essay I write is basically illegible).
I left the room thinking I was going to get something in the 3 range for EM and 4 for mechanics. They were pretty intense I used both my multivariable calculus and my differential equations skills (though EM required more math than mechanics). Everything turned out well and I got 5s, but the test kicked my ass. Respect the physics AP.

[waSP]

I never took the SAT (I wish I would have) and I got a 33 on the ACT.

As AP Exams go, I took US History and Calculus AB as a sophomore and got a pair of 4's.
Last year, I took European History, Calculus BC, and Statistics, and got two 5's and a 4 respectively.
This year I took Psychology, Macroeconomics, English Literature, French Language, and Biology and expect a plethora of 3's.

Our school offers English Language as well as all the AP tests except the REALLY weird ones (like Latin).  I <3 being at a rich public school.

[Dante]

Basic calculus literally doesn't count.  If you can't do differential equations in all of their nasty forms, forget it.  Also, once you get into any Quantum Mechanics, you'd better know your matrix operations and operator mechanics very well since that's the entire notation of the subject.  Vectors and tensors are key too.

Classical Mechanics mostly is all about the differential equation, but you can get around that sometimes depending on what you're exactly doing.  Most people won't get to those levels of math until their second year of college - even fewer will ever get enough linear algebra.

Agreed, but .....what school has any of that in an intro physics course??  I've seen a lot of curriculums for intro physics classes and none of them had that....

[kirdape3]

You won't.  Introductory physics (the first three semesters) literally have no bearing except to teach concepts - the actual mathematics in their modern forms are too difficult.

[Eastman]

Also, once you get into any Quantum Mechanics, you'd better know your matrix operations and operator mechanics very well since that's the entire notation of the subject.  Vectors and tensors are key too.

Though learning Quantum Mechanics IS learning that notation and how to properly handle the quantum wave functions. The class (in my experience) is almost entirely mathematical.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I feel dumb too. 1340. 720 Verbal/620 Math. Which suprises me, because like kirdape, I'm a math/science person.  I'm waiting for my SAT II scores (Math 2C and Bio-M). I guessing between 750 and 800 on the Bio and 550-600 on the Math, since I realized I was mis-gridding on question 30 and had been since the middle of the test, causing me to loose major time correcting that.

[Machinus]

1530 (770 Math, 760 Verbal)

800 Math IIC
800 Writing
770 Physics
750 Biology
740 Chemistry

5 Bio
4 Chemistry
4 Physics
4 Calculus
4 Language
4 Literature

There were some more, two histories and some other stuff that I didn't get credit for in college. Incidentally, I just finished my fourth semester of college and got a B in Quantum, although I felt like I didn't understand a word the professor said. Anyone want to help me get into physics grad school?

[Kerz]

Just got mine back.

680 Math
630 Verbal

1310 isn't bad for a first try.

[PucktheCat]

Not bad at all.

Those are almost exactly the scores my brother got when he took it recently.

Leo

[jpmeyer]

So on a semi-related note, did anyone take the GRE?  I took it earlier today and got a 1360, which is pretty solid since according to my test materials, the average person getting a Ph.D. gets like an 1100.

[walkingdude]

What's the GRE out of? If the average PHD gets a 1100 it must be quite hard since PHDs tend to be fairly sharp.

On an also similar token have people here taken the LSATs, I haven’t taken them yet but will probably be hitting them up next year (as well as possibly the GREs).

[jpmeyer]

It's out of 1600, but it's recentered so that the average score of 1000 is for the average person going to grad school, as opposed to the SAT where 1000 is the average for well, everyone in high school.  There's also a writing section, but I don't know what the average scores on that are like.

[Hyperion]

I took the GRE last November and got a 1320 (760 quantitative, 560 verbal), and 5.0 on the analytical writing section. The writing section is graded on a 1-6 scale; when I took it a 5.0 was at the 67th percentile, but I don't know what the average is either.

I thought the verbal part was really hard, partly because I didn't get much chance to hone my vocabulary/word association skills/whatever in college and because it's just more difficult to do things like antonyms than the material on the SAT.

On the SAT, I got a 1440 (740 math, 700 verbal). I don't remember what I got on the SAT subject tests but I took the Math II, Physics and Writing ones and got in the mid- to low-700's on each I think.

EDIT: despite my OK math scores I was unable to add 760 and 560 correctly the first go-around.

[jpmeyer]

YEAH!  I managed a 740 on the math section despite running out of time with about 3 questions to go on each section, but oh man was the verbal was wicked hard--and that was after majoring in English literature.  I could tell that I was getting like 10 antonyms or analogies in a row correct, but because of how the computer makes them are harder as you get more and more correct, it got to the point where they just kept giving me question after question where I didn't even know what a lot of the words even meant, much less be able to differentiate between the subtle differences between them all.

[PucktheCat]

Heh, that's funny that you found the verbal hard.  I find the math much worse than the verbal when I tutor the GRE.  You scored a bit better than I did on the math (I got a 720 iir) but I scored 700 on the verbal.

Did you notice that the percentiles are way skewed for the math?  I think even though I was above 700 on math I only got like a 79th percentile or something.  That is because the GRE math is like the same content as the SAT math, so the math/science students are all going to get higher scores and screw the curve.  The verbal isn't like that because they can just make the words harder.

As far as I can tell the GRE means a lot less than the SAT or LSAT though, since admission to PhD and Masters programs isn't such a cattle call.

Here is a question that fits in this thread a bit:  How many of you have had very weird disparities between your test scores and your grades when applying to college, etc.?  When I applied to law school last year I had an LSAT that was at Yale's 75th percentile and an undergrad. GPA that was below Oklahoma City University's 25th percentile.  Anyone else had similar splits?  I attribute mine to having too much fun my first three semesters at college.

Leo

[Dr. Sylvan]

Well I was only ahead of one-quarter of IMSA students GPA-wise with a 3.3... but somehow I'm guessing (hoping) that's not the way it would be at all high schools. Grade inflation may very well have made it simply impossible for someone who shows up every day to get less than a 3.0, because I sure wasn't working for those grades. My 1480 SAT certainly isn't off the scale for UIUC (plenty of Engineering students here just wreck the average) but I bet it's around the 75th percentile or so. I feel nekkid without more specific numbers.

My UIUC GPA is at, I kid you not, 2.998 right now. I'm not sure where that puts me, but it certainly does constitute proof that the world is mocking me.

[Jacob Orlove]

My UIUC GPA is at, I kid you not, 2.998 right now. I'm not sure where that puts me, but it certainly does constitute proof that the world is mocking me.

Don't feel too bad--Carl's Vintage rating was 1999 ever since last Gencon.

[jpmeyer]

Heh, that's funny that you found the verbal hard.  I find the math much worse than the verbal when I tutor the GRE.  You scored a bit better than I did on the math (I got a 720 iir) but I scored 700 on the verbal.

Did you notice that the percentiles are way skewed for the math?  I think even though I was above 700 on math I only got like a 79th percentile or something.  That is because the GRE math is like the same content as the SAT math, so the math/science students are all going to get higher scores and screw the curve.  The verbal isn't like that because they can just make the words harder.

As far as I can tell the GRE means a lot less than the SAT or LSAT though, since admission to PhD and Masters programs isn't such a cattle call.

Here is a question that fits in this thread a bit:  How many of you have had very weird disparities between your test scores and your grades when applying to college, etc.?  When I applied to law school last year I had an LSAT that was at Yale's 75th percentile and an undergrad. GPA that was below Oklahoma City University's 25th percentile.  Anyone else had similar splits?  I attribute mine to having too much fun my first three semesters at college.

Leo

While I haven't gotten my paper copies in yet, I noticed that using the charts and graphs in the test prep program that you get when you register a lot of the graphs of the scores for different masters/PhDs usually follow a bell curve, except for math/engineering degrees where it's like an exponential curve on the math section.  Interestingly, it's not like that at all for English master/PhD people and the verbal section, so according to my chart while my 620 verbal is in the 67th percentile of English PhDs, my 740 in math would've only put me in like the 40th percentile among engineering PhDs (and an 800 would still only be about the 75th percentile.)

[kirdape3]

Well, yeah, that makes sense.  You have to be some sort of mathematical genius to actually do anything really interesting in most engineering fields.  Even Mech-E will just run into wild and off the wall things with Chaos theory when they try to put water into an impeller, for example.

However, having the English one be so hard must be disappointing for a prospective engineer who can write clear and concise technical documents but can't actually do any English :p.

[PucktheCat]

Well, the reason really is that they don't want to penalize all the people who haven't taken any math after high school by including more advanced concepts than Algebra/Geometry/Trig, so they don't include any Calculus or anything beyond that.  On the verbal section they do something similar, in that they don't include college-level theory (in other words, on the GRE a cigar is just a cigar) but since they have the option of increasing the difficulty of the vocab and passages, they do.

Anyway, it really doesn't make any difference, since grad. schools know what they are looking at and know that a 700 math =/= 700 verbal on the GRE.

Leo

[Bulls on Parade]

On my first try (this year) as a Junior at the SAT's I got a mediocre 1310 (690 math 620 verbal). I had undergone limited preparation and on the practice tests had scored a low of 1350, so I'm really hoping it was just the test I got :/

Aside from that, SAT II's completely dumped on my chest. I knew I wouldn't do better than ~600, but also knew that's better than not taking them at all.

I'm looking into taking the ACT after reading through this thread- would you guys recommend it, if nothing more than an extra credential to present? I had previously thought it was just an SAT for ninnies.

[Ric_Flair]

I figure this is a general "standardized test" bitching forum by this time.  Bar exam = Pass/fail $160,000 game of War.  How is that for a dumbass test?  The bar is in two weeks, after which point I will start playing again...I cannot wait.  This shit is driving me crazy.  At this point I would rather staple my dick to leg than look at another contract question or secured transaction essay.

[Redman]

ACT is just a standardized thest they like using in the midwest/west of the US...it's more vocationaly based than the SAT (Ask you questions might be more realted to job skills, etc.)

GRE, I got 1520, 790 Math, 730 Verbal, and a 5.5 on the Analytical. But yeah, it doesn't matter as much as the LSATs or MCATs. All that's done for me so far is helped me get a spot teaching at Kaplan.

I do have a friend that studied for all of 3 days for the LSAT, and spend the entire night before doing nothing but playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, and he managed to get a 178. Which is scary.

As far as the GPA thing vs LSAT scores, I'd think just in terms of numbers, it's much easier to get a 4.0 gpa then a 180 on your LSAT. Depending on which school, there may be from 10-15 students at nearly every school with such a high GPA, but I can't imagine there are too many more than 100 folks in the entire applicant pool with perfect LSAT scores.

Bar exam = yet another reason I'm not going to Law School