<p>Do not take any cold medicines, mouthwashes, cough drops, or anything containing alcohol within 36 hrs of the SAT...</p>
<p>In March I took 4 robutussin cough drops to mitigate the severity flu symptoms the night before the SAT...
Turns out....I scored 250 pts lower on the real test than on the practice tests...NOTE: Drops contained high alcoholic concentrations...</p>
<p>THe same thing happened with my SAT IIs...I took cold medicines and did 100 pts worse on each SAT II than I should have....</p>
<p>Why does it hurt you though? There's this stuff in it ..Methylene that helps you breathe easier and I think it makes me alert too because it's "cold" in a sense. I think what will hurt you is if you take something that will make you sleepy.</p>
<p>Of course if you are very sick medicine will help...but taking even mouthwash when you are not very sick can significantly reduce your score...
for example- on Friday I had a cold...took a sparing and small amount of medicine or mouthwash with alcoholic content as reduced as possible...scored a 700 CR on practice test
On Saturday...had mouthwash and cough drops of alcoholic contents...scored 580 on CR practice test</p>
<p>My point is avoid anything ALCOHOLIC or avoid anything that will make you sleepy...take medicine but make sure the medicine will not make you drowsy or impair judgement (alcohol) before the test...
Make sure your medicine is non-drowsy and non-alcoholic...</p>
<p>I hate to be the voice of reason, but USING MOUTHWASH BEFORE A STANDARDIZED TEST WILL NOT HAVE A NEGATIVE AFFECT ON YOUR SCORE. Now, getting plastered or wasted the night before is not the best idea. Yet, my friend got a 5 on the AP chem test after smoking a bowl, so who knows?</p>
<p>I second what ashernm said, while I didn't take any practice tests I have a "friend" who won't stop whining about how she got a 2310 on her practice test and a 2010 on the real thing. If you're sick, take the medicine.</p>
<p>Come on PPL, it's COMMON SENSE :D :p --> Alcoholic or drowsiness promoting substances WORSEN YOUR PERFORMANCE...THIS POST IS MEANT TO BE A CAUTION AGAINST USING THEM....this is why DUI is ILLEGAL.... :D :D
If you are REALLY SICK...then TAKE THE MEDICINE...just make sure your medicine is non-drowsy and non-alcoholic</p>
<p>Wow. The joys of debate...
Though not necessary, I'll address a few other responses (just for fun)--></p>
<p>They are CB tests...and my results are reasonable based on a sample of all 8 tests in the New SAT....yes for 2 tests you may surmise that my results may be invalid...but for 8...I think there's a correlation.
With mouthwash...I mean if you accidentally swallow even a tiny amount of mouthwash...--> If you wish to attack the argument...address the big idea...picking at just this part of my argument does not do much to undermine the argument (which is based on scientific fact)--> Debate is fun
:D :D :D :D</p>
<p>sorry hyper but unless you chug that mouthwash or weigh less than 10 pounds the "tiny amount of mouthwash" isnt to blame...i think you're missing the obvious "third variable" in your "correlation."</p>
<p>if such a small amount of alcohol could change your score so severely, then you're already very close to the border of getting any given question right or wrong, and thus your scores will be highly inconsistent and must be taken with a grain of salt, regardless of the alcohol intake from medicine or mouthwash...</p>
<p>however if you have a medicine that makes you drowsy, and you take a standard dosage of it the morning of the test, that could be a problem...but leave it at that hyper</p>
<p>I think the solution to my problems is Crunk Juice. Crunk Juice will make SAT prep Aphrodisiac in nature....crunk j. is made up of skeet, baking soda, a destroyed CB test, etc. The SAT is REAL SEXY...</p>