SAT II Math 800, Aug, 2018
My Journey to Perfection through a Solid Review
I came into Dr. Li’s class completely unprepared for the Math 2 SAT Subject Test. I had no material or practice and only a few weeks until I had to take the test. As I had never taken a class from Dr. Li before, I wasn’t sure what kind of score I could expect to receive. However, from the first class, I realized I was in good hands. We started each class with a practice test, which we then graded and reviewed after. When we reviewed questions we got wrong, Dr. Li even came up with similar questions that we could try to make sure we had a solid understanding of the concepts we had trouble with. We did the same thing with the homework questions we had trouble with. This technique made it so that I felt very confident by the time the test came around. Each of the homework packets we received had an answer key at the end so we could check our work at home and come to class with our questions ready, which made it so that all the class time was used effectively. Sometimes, Dr. Li even gave us extra homework packets to supplement the curriculum. This helped me a lot with my preparation. When we didn’t understand a concept completely, Dr. Li would let us stay after class to go over it and make sure we had a solid grasp of the idea. In fact, he even held an extra class a few days before the test free of charge to let us take another practice test and solidify our confidence even more. Another method Dr. Li uses that is useful for the Math 2 SAT Subject Test and for math classes in general is to understand the inner workings of the math you are doing instead of just the surface level. He told us not to memorize any formulas, but rather to generate the formulas from the facts we knew to be true. This helped me a lot to understand more concepts because I wasn’t relying purely on memorization anymore. I could apply this concept to many different problems and found that I finished my practice tests faster and faster. When my classmates brought in practice books from Barron’s and Princeton review, Dr. Li answered all the questions they had from those books without hesitation. He even went so far as to create new problems that were modeled after the ones that they had trouble with from the book! The material Dr. Li uses is at a level slightly above that of the actual Math 2 SAT Subject Test, and therefore prepared us very well for the test. I saw very similar concepts and wording on the test. This made me confident of my abilities on test day. I even finished with extra time! After finishing the test, I was positive that I had scored a perfect. When I received my score a few weeks later, I wasn’t surprised at all that I had scored an 800. This shows the efficacy of Dr. Li’s methods. Although I started the class scoring less than stellar on the practice tests, Dr. Li’s material and methods of teaching ensured me that I would score perfectly on the test.
- D. K, (Wootton HS Junior)