Chapter 2: Strategies to Test Your Best

•  Know the Directions

•  Know the Format

•  Skip the Difficult Questions; Come Back to Them Later

•  Be a Good Guesser

•  Be a Good Gridder

•  Think About the Questions Before You Look at the Answers

•  Pace Yourself

•  Two-Minute Warning

•  Stress Management

•  The Days Before the Test

•  The Next Step

Now that you know a little about the SAT Subject Tests, it’s time to let you in on a few basic test-taking skills and strategies that can improve your performance. You should practice these skills and strategies as you prepare for the SAT Subject Tests.

The SAT Subject Tests are different from the tests that you’re used to taking. On your high school tests, you probably go through the questions in order. You probably spend more time on hard questions than on easy ones, because hard questions are generally worth more points. And you often show your work, because your teachers tell you that how you approach questions is as important as getting the right answers.

None of this applies to the SAT Subject Tests. You can benefit from moving around within the tests, hard questions are worth the same as easy ones, and it doesn’t matter how you answer the questions—only what your answers are.

KNOW THE DIRECTIONS

The SAT Subject Tests are highly predictable. Because the format and directions of the SAT Subject Tests remain unchanged from test to test, you can learn the setup of each test in advance. On Test Day, the various question types on each test shouldn’t be new to you.

One of the easiest things you can do to help your performance on the SAT Subject Tests is to understand the directions before taking the test. Because the instructions are always the same, there’s no reason to waste a lot of time on Test Day reading them. Learn them beforehand as you work through this book and the College Board publications.

Learn SAT Subject Test directions as you prepare for the tests. That way, you’ll have more time to spend answering the questions on Test Day.

KNOW THE FORMAT

The questions on the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History generally get harder as you work through the test. This pattern can work to your benefit.

When working on more basic questions near the beginning of the test, you can generally trust your first impulse: The obvious answer is likely to be correct. As you get to the end of a test section, you need to be a bit more suspicious. Now the answers probably won’t come as quickly and easily; if they do, look again because the obvious answers may be wrong. Watch out for answers that just “look right.” They may be distracters—wrong answer choices deliberately meant to entice you.

SKIP THE DIFFICULT QUESTIONS; COME BACK TO THEM LATER

There’s no mandatory order to the questions on the SAT Subject Test. You’re allowed to skip around on the SAT Subject Tests. High scorers know this fact. They move through the tests efficiently. They don’t dwell on any one question, even a hard one, until they’ve tried every question at least once.

When you run into questions that look tough, circle them in your test booklet and skip them for the time being. Go back and try again after you’ve answered the easier ones if you’ve got time. After a second look, troublesome questions can turn out to be remarkably simple.

If you’ve started to answer a question but get confused, quit and go on to the next question. Persistence might pay off in high school classes, but it usually hurts your SAT Subject Test scores. Don’t spend so much time answering one hard question that you use up three or four questions’ worth of time. That’ll cost you points, especially if you don’t even get the hard question right.

Do the questions in the order that’s best for you. Skip hard questions until you’ve gone through every question once. Don’t pass up the opportunity to score easy points by wasting time on hard questions. Come back to them later.

BE A GOOD GUESSER

You might have heard it said that the SAT Subject Test has a “guessing penalty.” That’s a misnomer. It’s really a wrong-answer penalty. If you guess wrong, you get a small penalty. If you guess right, you get full credit.

The fact is, if you can eliminate one or more answer choices as definitely wrong, you’ll turn the odds in your favor and actually come out ahead by guessing. The fractional points that you lose are meant to offset the points you might get “accidentally” by guessing the correct answer. With practice, however, you’ll see that it’s often easy to eliminate several answer choices on some of the questions. Eliminate the answer choices you can, then guess.

Don’t guess unless you can eliminate at least one answer choice. Don’t leave a question blank unless you have absolutely no idea how to answer it.

BE A GOOD GRIDDER

The answer grid has no heart. It sounds simple, but it’s extremely important: Don’t make mistakes filling out your answer grid. When time is short, it’s easy to get confused going back and forth between your test booklet and your grid. If you know the answers but misgrid, you won’t get the points. Here’s how to avoid mistakes.

Always circle the questions you skip. Put a big circle in your test booklet around any question numbers that you skip. When you go back, these questions will be easy to relocate. Also, if you accidentally skip a box on the grid, you’ll be able to check your grid against your booklet to see where you went wrong.

Always circle the answers you choose. Circling your answers in the test booklet makes it easier to check your grid against your booklet.

Grid five or more answers at once. Don’t transfer your answers to the grid after every question. Transfer them after every five questions. That way, you won’t keep breaking your concentration to mark the grid. You’ll save time and gain accuracy.

A common mistake is filling in all of the questions with the right answers—in the wrong spots. Whenever you skip a question, circle it in your test booklet and make doubly sure that you skip it on the answer grid as well.

THINK ABOUT THE QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU LOOK AT THE ANSWERS

The test makers love to put distracters among the answer choices. Distracters are answers that look like they’re correct, but aren’t. If you jump right into the answer choices without thinking first about what you’re looking for, you’re much more likely to fall for one of these traps.

Predict your answer before you go to the answer choices so you don’t get persuaded by the wrong answers. This helps protect you from persuasive or tricky incorrect choices. Many wrong answer choices are logical twists on the correct choice.

Try to think of the answer to a question before you shop among the answer choices. If you’ve got some idea of what you’re looking for, you’ll be less likely to be fooled by “trap” choices.

PACE YOURSELF

The SAT Subject Tests give you a lot of questions in a short period of time. To get through the tests, you can’t spend too much time on any single question. Keep moving through the tests at a good speed. If you run into a hard question, circle it in your test booklet, skip it, and come back to it later if you have time.

You don’t have to spend the same amount of time on every question. Ideally, you should be able to work through the easier questions at a brisk, steady clip and use a little more time on the harder questions. One caution: Don’t rush through basic questions just to save time for the harder ones. The basic questions are points in your pocket, and you’re better off not getting to some harder questions if it means losing easy points because of careless mistakes. Remember, you don’t earn any extra credit for answering hard questions.

TWO-MINUTE WARNING

Some questions can be done more quickly than others because they require less work or because choices can be eliminated more easily. If you start to run out of time, look for these shorter, quicker questions.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

You can beat anxiety the same way you can beat the SAT Subject Test in U.S. History—by knowing what to expect beforehand and developing strategies to deal with it.

Sources of Stress

On a separate piece of paper, write down your sources of test-related stress. The idea is to pin down any sources of anxiety so you can deal with them one by one. We have provided common examples—feel free to use them and any others you think of.

•  I always freeze up on tests.

•  I’m nervous about timing.

•  I need a good/great score to get into my first-choice college.

•  My older brother/sister/best friend/girlfriend/boyfriend did really well. I must match their scores or do better.

•  My parents, who are paying for school, will be quite disappointed if I don’t do well.

•  I’m afraid of losing my focus and concentration.

•  I’m afraid I’m not spending enough time preparing.

•  I study like crazy, but nothing seems to stick in my mind.

•  I always run out of time and get panicky.

•  The simple act of thinking, for me, is like wading through refrigerated honey.

Read through the list. Cross out things or add things. Now rewrite the list in order of most disturbing to least disturbing.

Chances are, the top of the list is a fairly accurate description of exactly how you react to test anxiety, both physically and mentally. The later items usually describe your fears (disappointing Mom and Dad, looking bad, etc.). Taking care of the major items from the top of the list should go a long way towards relieving overall test anxiety. That’s what we’ll do next.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Take 60 seconds to list the areas of U.S. history that you are good at. They can be general, such as “Colonialism,” or specific, like “Foreign Policy in the 1930s.” Put down as many as you can think of, and if possible, time yourself. Write for the entire time; don’t stop writing until you’ve reached the one-minute stopping point. Go!

Now take one minute to list areas of the test you struggle with or simply do not understand. Again, keep it to one minute and continue writing until you reach the cutoff. Go!

Taking stock of your assets and liabilities lets you know the areas you don’t have to worry about and the ones that will demand extra attention and effort. It helps a lot to find out where you need to spend extra effort. We mostly fear what we don’t know and are probably afraid to face. You can’t help feeling more confident when you know you’re actively strengthening your chances of earning a higher overall score.

Now, go back to the “good” list and expand on it for two minutes. Take the general items on that first list and make them more specific; take the specific items and expand them into more general conclusions. Naturally, if anything new comes to mind, jot it down. Focus all of your attention and effort on your strengths. Don’t underestimate yourself or your abilities. Give yourself full credit. At the same time, don’t list strengths you don’t really have; you’ll only be fooling yourself.

Expanding from general to specific might go as follows. If you listed “politics” as a broad topic you feel strong in, you would then narrow your focus to include areas of this subject about which you are particularly knowledgeable. Your areas of strength might include specific presidencies, legislative acts, Supreme Court decisions, etc. Whatever you know well goes on your “good” list. OK. Check your starting time. Go!

After you’ve stopped, check your time. Did you find yourself going beyond the two minutes allotted? Did you write down more things than you thought you knew? Is it possible you know more than you’ve given yourself credit for? Could that mean you’ve found a number of areas in which you feel strong?

You just took an active step toward helping yourself. Enjoy your increased feelings of confidence and use them when you take the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History.

How to Deal

Visualize

This next little group of activities is a follow-up to the strong and troublesome test item lists you completed above. Sit in a comfortable chair in a quiet setting. If you wear glasses, take them off. Close your eyes and breathe in a deep, satisfying breath of air. Really fill your lungs until your rib cage is fully expanded and you can’t take in any more. Then, exhale the air completely. Imagine you’re blowing out a candle with your last little puff of air. Do this two or three more times, filling your lungs to their maximum and emptying them totally. Keep your eyes closed, comfortably but not tightly. Let your body sink deeper into the chair as you become even more comfortable.

With your eyes shut, you can notice something very interesting: You’re no longer dealing with the worrisome stuff going on in the world outside of you. Now you can concentrate on what happens inside you. The more you recognize your own physical reactions to stress and anxiety, the more you can do about them. You may not realize it, but you’ve begun to regain a sense of being in control.

Let images begin to form on TV screens on the back of your eyelids. Allow the images to come easily and naturally; don’t force them. Visualize a relaxing situation. It might be in a special place you’ve visited before or one you’ve read about. It can be a fictional location that you create in your imagination, but a real-life memory of a place or situation you know is usually better. Make it as detailed as possible and notice as much as you can.

Stay focused on the images as you sink deeper into your chair. Breathe easily and naturally. You might have the sensations of any stress or tension draining from your muscles and flowing downward, out your feet and away from you.

Take a moment to check how you’re feeling. Notice how comfortable you’ve become. Imagine how much easier it would be if you could take the test feeling this relaxed and in this state of ease. You’ve coupled the images of your special place with sensations of comfort and relaxation. You’ve also found a way to become relaxed simply by visualizing your own safe, special place.

Close your eyes and start remembering a real-life situation in which you did well on a test. If you can’t come up with one, remember a situation in which you did something that you were really proud of—a genuine accomplishment. Make the memory as detailed as possible. Think about the sights, the sounds, the smells, even the tastes associated with this remembered experience. Remember how confident you felt as you accomplished your goal. Now start thinking about the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History. Keep your thoughts and feelings in line with that prior, successful experience. Don’t make comparisons between them. Just imagine taking the upcoming test with the same feelings of confidence and relaxed control.

This exercise is a great way to bring the test down to earth. You should practice this exercise often, especially when you feel burned out on test preparation. The more you practice it, the more effective the exercise will be for you.

THE DAYS BEFORE THE TEST

As the test gets closer, you may find your anxiety is on the rise. To calm any pretest jitters you may have, let’s go over a few strategies for the days before and after the exam.

Three Days Before the Test

It’s almost over. Eat an energy bar, drink some soda—do whatever it takes to keep going. Here are Kaplan’s strategies for the three days leading up to the test.

Take a full-length practice test under timed conditions. Use the techniques and strategies you’ve learned in this book. Approach the test strategically, actively, and confidently.

WARNING: Do not take a full-length practice test if you have fewer than 48 hours left before the test. Doing so will probably exhaust you and hurt your score on the actual test. You wouldn’t run a marathon the day before the real thing.

Two Days Before the Test

Go over the results of your practice test. Don’t worry too much about your score or about whether you got a specific question right or wrong. The practice test doesn’t count, but do examine your performance on specific questions with an eye to how you might get through each one faster and better on the test to come.

The Night Before the Test

DO NOT STUDY. Get together an “Exam Kit” containing the following items:

•  A watch

•  A few No. 2 pencils (Pencils with slightly dull points fill the ovals better.)

•  Erasers

•  Photo ID card

•  Your admission ticket

Know exactly where you’re going, exactly how you’re getting there, and exactly how long it takes to get there. It’s probably a good idea to visit your test center sometime before the day of the test so that you know what to expect—what the rooms are like, how the desks are set up, and so on.

Relax the night before the test. Read a good book, take a long hot shower, watch some bad television. Get a good night’s sleep. Go to bed early and leave yourself extra time in the morning.

The Morning of the Test

First, wake up. After that …

•  Eat breakfast. Make it something substantial but not anything too heavy or greasy.

•  Don’t drink a lot of coffee if you’re not used to it. Bathroom breaks cut into your time, and too much caffeine is a bad idea.

•  Dress in layers so that you can adjust to the temperature of the test room.

•  Read something. Warm up your brain with a newspaper or a magazine. You shouldn’t let the exam be the first thing you read that day.

•  Be sure to get there early. Allow yourself extra time for traffic, mass transit delays, and/or detours.

During the Test

Don’t be shaken. If you find your confidence slipping, remind yourself how well you’ve prepared. You know the structure of the test; you know the instructions; you’ve had practice with—and have learned strategies for—every question type.

If something goes really wrong, don’t panic. If the test booklet is defective—two pages are stuck together or the ink has run—raise your hand and tell the proctor you need a new book. If you accidentally misgrid your answer page or put the answers in the wrong section, raise your hand and tell the proctor. He or she might be able to arrange for you to regrid your test after it’s over, when it won’t cost you any time.

After the Test

You might walk out of the exam thinking that you blew it. This is a normal reaction. Lots of people—even the highest scorers—feel that way. You tend to remember the questions that stumped you, not the ones that you knew. We’re positive that you will have performed well and scored your best on the exam because you followed the Kaplan strategies outlined in this section. Be confident in your preparation and celebrate the fact that the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History is soon to be a distant memory.

THE NEXT STEP

When you take the SAT Subject Tests, you have one clear objective in mind: to score as many points as you can. It’s that simple. The rest of this book is dedicated to helping you review the content that will be covered on the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History.

Next you’re ready to tackle our diagnostic practice test. This test will probe your mastery of the various U.S. history topics on the SAT Subject Test: U.S. History. Use it to identify areas in which you need to refresh your knowledge. If you have limited time to review, focus on the chapters in this book that deal with the content areas in which your performance was weakest.

Work quickly on easier questions to leave more time for harder questions, but not so quickly that you make careless errors.