SAT: Does it Actually Show the Capabilities and Knowledge of a Student?
SAT is a world-wide known test.
It stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test and lasts 3 hours. The test consists of three parts: language, reading, and mathematics, which is separated in the calculator and a non-calculator section. The SAT is a test designed to compare students in an international grading system, however, universities and colleges have given it too much importance. Students take the test through the years on specific dates and work hard for it. Some isolate themselves in their room to study and don’t participate in their afterschool activities or hangouts.
On the day of the test, students are mentally strained, even though they have studied hard because they want to get a high enough score to get into the universities that they desire. Universities have different score requirements based on the system that is now in place, in which, the highest score is around 1600 points; however, the score has changed throughout the years and it still might change in the future. The time limit that is in place during the test is to reflect the college exams and also to see how well a student works under the pressure of time; however, this pressure leads to mistakes and distractions.”The SAT has changed many times over the years, but interestingly, one constant has been that most students are not expected to finish every question”(“How To Beat Time-Limit Pressure On The SAT”). This states that even if the SAT has changed throughout the year, the time limit is the one thing that hasn’t changed and it says that the time in place is to see how much the student can accomplish. Time is one of the main reasons why students don’t do well score high enough on the test, which leads to not showing the full capacity of a student and also reflects negatively on the students’ college application.
The majority of the students repeat their test because they are not happy with the score they got and some want to repeat it, but their families can’t afford to pay for another exam. Even the students who are happy with their score, repeat the test in hope to get an even better score than they already got, which raises the question, if the SAT evaluates students on what they know and if it is worthy of all that time and money that the student spends into studying for the test. In my opinion, the idea of the SAT that wants to evaluate students based on one international rating is great; however, how it actually works it is not. I think that the time given for each section of the exam to be increased and thatthe SAT should have a bigger range of subjects where the student can choose to be evaluated on. At the moment, I think that the SAT does not evaluate the student for their full potential and that colleges and universities should not give so much importance to the score of SAT in a students application.
