A machine, not a person, will score your SAT II U.S. History Test. The tabulating machine sees only the filled-in ovals on your answer sheet and does not care how you came to these answers; it just impassively notes whether your answers are correct. So whether you knew the correct answer right away or just took a lucky guess, the machine will award you one point. It doesn’t award extra points if you’ve spent a really long time getting the right answer. It doesn’t award points if you managed to get a tricky questsion right. Think of this scoring system as a message to you from the ETS: “We care only about your answers, and not about any of the thought behind them.”

So you should give ETS right answers, as many as possible, using whatever means possible. It’s obvious that the SAT II U.S. History Test allows you to show off your knowledge of U.S. history, but the test gives you the same opportunity to show off your foxlike cunning by figuring out what strategies will allow you to best display that knowledge.