A machine, not a person, will score your SAT II test. The tabulating machine sees only the filled-in ovals on your answer sheet and doesn’t care how you came to those answers—it cares only whether your answers are correct. A lucky guess counts in your favor just as much as an answer you give confidently. By the same token, if you accidentally fill in (B) where you meant (C), you won’t get any credit for having known what the answer was. Think of the multiple-choice test as a message to you from the ETS: “We score your answers, and not any of the work behind them.” So give them right answers—as many as possible, using whatever means possible.

We’ll start by discussing some general principles for test taking that you can use for this test as well as any other test you take, then we’ll move on to strategies that apply directly to the SAT II Chemistry test.