The SAT is merciless!

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Okay so I just did my SAT today. And you're probably wondring why the title. Simply because the SAT is merciless. So I'm gonna recount my experience today:-

When I first did the test, I was doing the essay first. I saw some text on the essay paper saying I have to do it in 25 minutes. I thought that it meant that students should take 25 minutes to complete the work. Boy was I wrong! After 25 minutes passed since the start of the exam, we were told that we should stop writing the essay and move on to the next section, and not allowed to go back to the previous section. And the worst part was that I was just almost finished with first paragraph! So after trying to finish the next section but was almost half-way there when the time stopped, I managed to complete every question in the rest of the sections. By the time the test ended, I had complete almost the whole paper, most of the section that I had completed fully being Critical Reading and Writing, and I think Mathematics. So after the test, I sorta felt sorry for all the students taking the SAT all over the world, and perhaps the ACT and SAT II. I mean come on! I have been doing and reading about Singapore and British exams and they don't even have this "time limit thing" for each section. They just simply gave us the time limit for the whole exam and let us go at our own pace. It's due to this sick idea on time limit for each section that I was unable to complete the whole paper. But I'm still willing to follow this sick rule if it means fulfilling the goals I have for myself.

You'd not want them to time the whole exam. If you got hung up in one section, you'd miss sections you never get to.

Timing individual sections gives you a shot at each section.

Also consider the SAT is deliberately designed so it's very hard to complete all the questions in the time allotted. Alternating English and math sections with increasing difficulty.

Frankly, with all the prep classes out there, the SAT and ACT are largely irrelevant for determining college placement. You aren't gauging the ability of the student to know the material...only to cram for a test.

Don't worry, most colleges don't care about the essay portion. It also doesn't weight hugely in your overall score.

I'm in Britain, and they do occasionally give a time limit for each section.

What I can't stand is when they spend half an hour telling you exactly how to write your name on the bloody exam paper. I mean, come on, if we can't even write our name without supervision, I would have thought taking the exam is basically a lost cause.

Once at primary school, we had to do one of those word tests where you block in the right answer, and there were some practise questions on the first page. The teacher told us to start, so I did the practise questions, and then went onto the next page, because I assumed that we were meant to just do the test, but apparently the instruction meant "do the practise questions, then sit and wait for the rest of the class to grasp the difficult concept of filling in boxes, before the teacher decides to put you out of your misery and let you get on with the real test". So I get accused of "cheating" because I went onto the next page.

Yeah, when they spend ages getting started, I just want to yell, "Will you get the hell on with it so we can get it over with?!" But that probably wouldn't help.

I don't really like or agree with the SAT/ACT tests. ALso, i'm fairly sure the grading is rigged. On my first test, i wrote a horrible essay and got ~the lowest score. I went to a prep class, wrote a timed practice essay there, got ~the highest score by their judgement. Took another test, wrote a decent essay, got ~the lowest score again. The examples for 'perfect' score that are given on the prep books are nearly super-human in my opinion. About three pages long, able to make a professional publisher drool at first sight. I'm pretty sure that nobody I went to school with is capable of that.

You know, (at least on the ACT, not sure about SAT) if you have a diagnosis, then you can get accommodations.

Hey don't worry about it. Like someone above said, the essay portion doesn't matter too much. I mean seriously, I took the ACT and I got a 30 on the overall test (99th percentile). I only got 77th percentile on the essay portion... but it didn't even calculate into my overall ACT score.

The time limit thing definitely sucks. That was the most annoying part about the ACT for me. The test questions themselves were really easy, but you had to be quick on your feet and think really fast! It was just testing how fast you could think I think. Maybe you should try taking the ACT, because if you get a good score on that, you can report it instead of the SAT score to colleges. That, or you can report both and they may just think the SAT score was just a fluke.... I dunno.... Well, I didn't even study for the ACT at all, and I still got a high enough score for Duke and Cornell... Just don't worry about it. It's just a test after all! Just because you don't do good on it, it doesn't mean you're stupid. Yeah, don't sweat it. I think you can prove your intelligence to colleges in other ways too...

Okay, I apologize for this post. I'm really hyper right now as I'm writing it. Too much caffeine, you know? Too much caffeine....

They don't have SAT's in Canada.

I did the SAT only once, over half the stuff ive never seen before in my HS classes, got a 980 i think. Luckily, that grade got me one free semester at the local Community College (which helped), but its kinda hard to take a test that really doesnt have a bearing on life. And yes, i did read some of the help stuff on how to take SATs and whatnot, but those were of little help. I dont know how they get IQ from this testing since mine seems to be between 120 and 130 from various tests. Now if they replaced the SAT with something useful, say a job placement exam, that would be a bit better or acceptable/practical imo.

And as soon as you thought you're done with all this silliness, there's the GRE! Yes, indeed. The Graduation Record Examination, or the Great Ridiculous Examination, depending on your pronunciation.

It reminds me of the Denis Leary song, "Life's Gonna Suck."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsR2Mk4uh_4[/youtube]