<p>Haha…I know no one else agreed with floyd, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that I think that the SAT is a pretty awful concept as well. I mean, I understand what its purpose is, it’s trying to assess people’s intelligence based on some standardized questions. Good enough. But it really doesn’t do it accurately.
First of all, some people aren’t very good at taking tests, in which case the SAT doesn’t represent a person’s knowledge (contrary to popular belief, test-taking ISN’T as important in life as it seems to be right now).
Also, it is such a long test. It’s completely irrational to think that any adolescent is going to perform to the best of their ability while concentrating for 4 hours. 4 hours WITHOUT snacks (or even water with some proctors). Ah! The proctors are the worst. When I took the SAT my proctor would not let me use a watch to keep track of time and wouldn’t let us have water. *****es!
AND, students from low-income areas or whose first language wasn’t english (or situations similar to these) are disadvantaged when taking the SAT. You really can’t argue that. If a student performs poorly on the SAT because their school hasn’t prepared them does not at all mean that they’re not intelligent. And if they don’t speak english well, you can understand how taking the test would be really difficult.
Plus, you know when you get your scoresheet back in the mail and you look over all the questions you got wrong and think: “Wow, what an idiot. I accidentally marked the wrong letter,” or: “I KNOW that answer. I should have gotten that right on the test?” How could those questions have assessed your intelligence?? Boo hiss. It just shows your ability to take a test (which isn’t really that important)…and not even! Some people get fives on all their AP test and then don’t do well on standardized tests like the SAT.
Anyway, I’m already in college. I took the SAT and ACT and they got me where I needed to go. So I’m not whining. I’m just stating my opinion.</p>