After grumbling, however, you still have to register. There are two ways to go about it:
online or by mail. To register online, go to http://www.collegeboard.com. To register by mail, fill out
and send in the forms enclosed in the Registration Bulletin, which should be available in
your high school’s guidance office. You can also request a copy of the Bulletin by calling
the College Board at (609) 771-7600 or writing to:
College Board SAT Program
P.O. Box 6200
Princeton, NJ 08541–
You can register to take up to three SAT II tests for any given testing day. Unfortunately,
even if you decide to take three tests in one day, you’ll still have to pay a separate
registration fee for each.
Introduction to SAT II Physics
THE BEST WAY TO DO WELL ON SAT II Physics is to be really good at physics. For that, there
is no substitute. But the physics whiz who spends the week before SAT II Physics cramming on
Lagrangian mechanics and Dirac notation probably won’t fare any better than the average student
who reviews this book carefully. Why? Because SAT II Physics Tests (and first-year university
courses) do not cover Lagrangian mechanics or Dirac notation. Take this moment to sigh with
relief.
This chapter will tell you precisely what SAT II Physics will test you on, how the test breaks
down, and what format the questions will take. You should read this information carefully and
base your study plan around it. There’s no use spending hours on end studying for stuff that’s not
relevant to the test. Knowing nothing about electromagnetic induction will hurt you on the test,
but nowhere near as much as knowing nothing about optics will.
Content of SAT II Physics
Math and physics go hand in hand, right? You might be surprised, then, to learn that you aren’t
allowed to use a calculator on SAT II Physics. The math required of you never goes beyond simple
arithmetic and manipulation of equations. You have, on average, 48 seconds to answer each
question, and the people at ETS realize that isn’t enough time to delve into problems involving
simultaneous equations or complex trigonometry. They’re more interested in testing your grasp of
the basic concepts of physics. If you’ve grasped these concepts, your weakness in math isn’t going
to hurt you.
ETS breaks down the concepts you need to know for the test into six categories:
Topic Percentage of the Test
Mechanics 34–38%
Electricity and Magnetism 22–26%
Waves 15–19%
Heat, Kinetic Theory, and Thermodynamics 8–12%