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Lesson
1
1
ARCO
■  SAT II Subject Tests
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ABOUT THE SAT II: SUBJECT TESTS
What Subjects Are Tested?
Each SAT II: Subject Test is designed to measure your mastery of a particular topic. The tests fall into five
general categories:
English
History and Social Studies
Writing
U.S. History
Literature
World History
Languages
Mathematics
Spanish
Level IC
French
Level IIC
German
Modern Hebrew
Science
Latin
Biology E/M (Ecological/Molecular)
Italian
Chemistry
Japanese
Physics
Chinese
Korean
English Language Proficiency
This book provides material that will help you do your best on the subject tests most students take. Each
test consists entirely of multiple-choice items (except Writing, which includes an essay component). The
time limit for each test is 60 minutes.
HOW ARE THE SAT II TESTS SCORED?
Scores on SAT II tests (except for the English Language Proficiency Test) are reported on a scale that
ranges from 200 (the lowest) to 800 (the highest). This three-digit score is called the scaled score. Your
scaled score is a function of your raw score. Your raw score is determined by the number of questions you
answer correctly, less an adjustment factor for questions you have answered incorrectly. Questions you
omit do not affect your score.
The adjustment factor for wrong answers is a fraction of a point. The fraction depends upon the
number of answer choices used in constructing that test. For a test that uses five answer choices, the
adjustment for a wrong answer is –
1
4
. For a test that uses four answer choices, the adjustment for a wrong
answer is –
1
3
. For a test that uses three answer choices, the adjustment for a wrong answer is 
1
2
.

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