December, January, May, and June at test centers around the country. Since not
all of the tests are offered at each administration, be sure to check the dates and
details on the College Board website carefully. You’ll want to take the test on a
date that’s as close as possible to the end of your coursework in the subject. For
example, if your chemistry course ends December 21, take the January test. If it
ends in May, take the test in May or June—whichever date falls the soonest after
your course has ended.
You can register for these tests either through the College Board website or
through regular mail. To register by mail, ask your guidance counselor for the
appropriate forms, which you’ll need to mail in by the date listed on the College
Board website—generally about five weeks before the test. You can register late,
but late registration ends about four weeks prior to the test week and will cost
you an additional fee. The costs of registering for an individual SAT Subject Test
are $21 for the first test and $10 for any additional test.
You’ll need to arrive at the test center pretty early—by 8:15 A.M. Your first test
will begin promptly at 8:30 A.M., and since each test is an hour long, if you take
the maximum of the three tests that you’re allowed to take at each sitting, you’ll
be done by 12:30 P.M. If you’re taking just one or two tests, you can leave as
soon as you’ve finished.
One final, but important, note—ETS allows you to change your mind about what
test you’d like to take on the test day. This means that if you aren’t sure which
test you’ll feel more confident taking, you can study up until test day and then
make your decision at the last moment.
How Is the Test Scored, and What Does the Score Mean?
As with the regular SAT, the SAT Subject Tests are scored on a scale from 200 to
800, where 200 is the lowest and 800 is the highest; the exception to this rule is
the English Language Proficiency Test, which is scored on a scale from 901 to
999.
Subject tests that do not involve written responses (such as the SAT Chemistry)
are graded by a computer. The computer simply adds up the number of questions
you answered correctly and subtracts from this number one-quarter of the
number of questions you answered incorrectly. (It doesn’t count questions that
you skipped either way.) This determines your raw test score. The raw score is