Student Blogger: Reflections On the SAT

The mere mention of this standardized test strikes fear into the hearts of many.

Few remain standing after the four-hour mental marathon. Fewer still will live to tell the tale.

At least, that’s how the stories go.

On October 1, 2011, hundreds of Pleasanton students will join high school students across the nation to take the SAT Reasoning Test, a three-hour 45-minute exam that measures college readiness in critical reading, mathematics, and writing.

Or so the College Board, the creators of the SAT, claims. But for many students, the SAT is certainly not just a four-hour test: it’s a culmination of our educational careers, the sum of years of hard work and schooling.

For me, my journey with the SAT began in middle school.

First came the rumors – horror stories of a four-hour exam that supposedly determined our worth as intellectuals. Next there were the mysterious congregations of high schoolers every few months, each time the identical to the next: herds of sleep-deprived, stress-ridden teenagers flocking to designated testing centers with their freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils and TI-84 calculators in hand. Then we heard the legends – tales of mythical creatures that scored the perfect 2400.

Finally, the SAT stealthily made its way into my own life when my well-intentioned grandmother quietly substituted unflattering Christmas sweaters with a six-pound, 997-paged SAT book during the Christmas of my freshman year. (For the record, I can’t remember the last time I opened that monster of a book, but at least I’ve put it to good use as a footrest under my computer desk.)

Now, after returning to school for junior year, horror stories began to surface as my peers recounted their summers: hundreds of hours of SAT “boot camp” over the summer, hunched over practice tests, memorizing thousands of vocabulary words, turning pale under the buzz of fluorescent lights, surrounded by stacks of SAT books that pile to reach the ceiling and block any form of sunlight that may have somehow found its way into such a joy-deprived classroom.

To those unfamiliar with the weird idiosyncrasies of teenagers, that scene sounds like cruel and unusual punishment. Even when I first heard their stories, I wondered what species of devilish parents would subject their children to such torture.

Yet for many of my classmates, SAT “boot camp” is neither cruel nor unusual but a necessary evil. After all, the SAT is a just another challenge that stands between college hopefuls and institutions of higher education.

And so with the SAT less than a week away, it’s time to hit the books.