My SAT Exam Experiences

"That SAT exam," I confidently told my friend Kevin [not his real name] in 2006, "I will score over 2100 in it."

"I also thought so," Kevin replied, "but I only managed to score an 1880."

Kevin and I were both applying to MIT and he happened to have sat for the SAT exam before me. Even though he insinuated it was impossible for me to get a high score in SAT, I still believed every word I said when I made it known to him that I was aiming to score over 2100 in the exam.

Almost everything about the exam tended to make me believe I could accomplish my goal. Its questions were multiple-choice, the kind we had in primary school. Then the math section of the exam tested what I learnt in junior high school. (Yes junior, not senior high school!)

The critical reading section of the exam was the only dark cloud on the horizon since it involved reading stilted passages. It also required me to absorb a huge number of college-level vocabularies.

That troublesome critical reading section notwithstanding, I stayed focused on scoring over 2100 in the SAT exam - the sort of marks that most admitted students to top American colleges scored.

But alas! Come the day when I was to sit for the SAT exam, I didn't feel as clear-headed as I wanted, something that made me fill answers of certain section on a part reserved for another section.

When I realized my blunder, I had a panic attack. The invigilator was kind enough to allow me to rub out my answers and transfer them to the right part. But that of course worked against me as the exam was strictly timed.

After taking the SAT, I had a gloomy inkling that I would score low marks in the exam, thus hurting my chances of getting into MIT and three other selective colleges I was applying for admission. Sure enough, I scored low marks in the exam, something like a 1770. Mark you, I was the same guy who had confidently boasted to Kevin that I would get over 2100 in the exam.

Several weeks after receiving my SAT scores, I registered to take the exam for the second time and began to study for it more diligently. Once bitten, twice shy.

Although I was sanguine I would make a significant improvement in my second take of the SAT, I have to confess the critical reading section of the SAT still worried me. I found it rather hard to remember the meaning of the vocabularies I crammed for the exam.

As it happened, I made a significant improvement in my second take of the SAT by scoring 1880 marks. But the score was still not good enough to get me into such a selective college as MIT.

Never one to easily give up, I retook the SAT exam two more times. I would have loved to tell you what transpired in my third and fourth takes of the exam but let me spare you the details. Let me instead tell you three lessons I learnt about the exam.

The first lesson is that the exam tests more of students' reasoning skills than on their amount of knowledge. That's why it's possible for some 'C' students to outscore some 'A' students in the SAT exams.

The second lesson is that the critical reading section of the exam favours those with a strong word power, a factor that has been said to be crucial to attaining success.

The third lesson I learnt, which is perhaps the most important, is to never revenge. You see, the SAT test makers gave students stilted passages to read in the critical reading section of the exam. Then they asked them to write a very interesting essay in the writing section of the exam.

If a student dared to make the mistake of revenging by giving the examiners a stilted essay to read, they'd get a low score, which would hurt their chances of getting into their preferred college. Indeed, revenge is for suckers; as enlightened people, we should leave it to God.