"BIG SCORE: When Mom Takes the SATs" by Elizabeth Kolbert (The New Yorker, March 3, 2014)

[Hunt]

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I agree, the SAT is nothing more than a monopolistic and cynical cash grab. The questions on their own are not even remotely difficult. (I mean come on, the math section doesn’t test past basic geometry, how is that college ready?) However, testing conditions are designed to make you rush and stress out so much that the only way you can do reasonably well is if you play the game of the SAT. Great, if I ever have to diffuse a bomb in 25 minutes by answering basic algebra and geometry from the SAT and somehow the bomb went off at the end of it with a force related to the number of questions I either answered incorrectly or omitted, then I would be glad that the SAT prepared me for that, otherwise it was a waste of my time. (Also, as long as you pay more money, you can reset the bomb as many times as you want and only get hit by the smallest explosion.)

Dang, sounds like it’s both too easy and too hard at the same time.</p>