It’s funny that my first post on this blog (not any blog mind you) comes three days before my SAT Subject Tests. I should really be studying excruciatingly hard for them, but it’s now 11:36pm and I really can’t be bothered to do another test at midnight.
Which brings me to ponder upon the wonder that is the SAT. It’s not entirely the College Board’s problem – for me, I think the hype surrounding the test comes from the fact that, especially the Reasoning Test (SAT I for those of you who consistently think you are old…), the test was never meant to be studied for. Excuse my grammar right there, or if there wasn’t any applicable errors, then please circle answer choice (E). However much I’d like to rant for megabytes about the Reasoning Test, I must suppress that and instead persuade you the Subject Tests are true spawns of the devil.
First off, the scoring system is abysmally…intriguing. For example, in the Physics exam, one can leave blank a grand total of 13 questions – or get a combination of blank and incorrect answers not totalling less than 59 for one’s raw score – and still manage to wing an 800 out of a possible 800 points (whoever thought of making a test out of 800 wasn’t much of a genius either). Now let’s check out the Chemistry exam. I take both Physics HL and Chem HL as IB subjects, and trust me, the two sciences aren’t all that different. Unfortunately, if you leave a mere four questions blank on this test, kiss goodbye to that full score. It’s even worse if you get more than two wrong!
Math, I can’t complain – except for maybe the fact that the study guides published from various “We’re the best exam prep guide publishers” never seem to agree on what’s going to be on the test. Some most vehemently include limits and derivatives into their practice tests, while others think finding the slope of a y=2 graph rather difficult. Thank God for past papers.
Of course, now that we’ve come to these Catch-22 exam prep guides, I might as well offer a bit of advice that nobody seems to know about – at least not in this concrete jungle we all seem to have christened Hong Kong. It has come to my immediate attention that nearly 0% of the student population understand the US book return policy; either they never read the front cover or are too rich to care about it anyway. What happens with many of these books is a “raise your score guarantee” – you take their tests and if you aren’t “satisfied” (funny that, because the publisher determines your satisfaction), they will reimburse you the cost of their book. Which is why all the books make their practise tests ridiculously difficult! Normally, it wouldn’t be much of a problem, except here in Asia, parents take study guides from glorious America like gold and silver. Or if you’re a true chemist, like Au and AgNO3.
Excuse my lack of subscripts. It’s now 11:47 and I am tired enough to watch one episode of Buffy season 5 and get on with life (aka sleep). Hope you enjoyed my first reflectable
gizgiz
lightninghell
1 Comment
August 13, 2008 at 5:27 am
Hi Chester,
I think one of the biggest reasons the SAT is intimidating is that it is shrouded in mystery yet plays such a crucial role in determining wher eyou end up for college.
I’m hoping to help students and their families out with a video blog I have started called MITEACH.WORDPRESS.COM.
My goal is to make good SAT test prep available to everyone (regardless of income or geographic location). Hopefully I can make a difference! Keep up the thoughtful blog posts.