YA Research: I Retook the SAT, Part I

On Saturday, like I promised, I took a full-length online practice test for the SAT. I was doing this as research for a MS, and also because I was equal parts curious and masochistic. (Fact: I would later come to the realization that I was much more masochistic than curious.) If you want to read a hilarious account of another adult doing this, and even warning others about retaking the test as "blog stunt," go here. Unfortunately a friend showed me that post too late to stop my own plans. Anyway, this was for writing research.

The first sign that this was maybe not the most thought-through idea was when I realized that I don’t even own a calculator anymore. FAIL. I had to use my cell, which was even worse because I am a luddite who still uses a dumbphone with tiny keys. 

So I went to the SAT's home page and read these instructions: 

This practice test contains 9 out of the 10 sections you will see on the real SAT. The variable section has been omitted, so there will be a skip in the sequence of section numbers. The 9 separately timed sections include:

•                One 25-minute essay

•                Five 25-minute sections

•                Two 20-minute sections

•                One 10-minute section

My initial reaction: I am not going to make it through this. The last time I took a test was in grad school; it had a limit of two hours. That was years ago. I don’t even like going to hour-and-a-half meetings at work because they seem inhumanely long. I’m one of those people who, while doing sedentary work, actually stands up every 20-30 minutes and stretches or walks to get some water.

How did I ever sit through the SAT and the GRE back in the day? 

Of course, I was taking this at my kitchen table, in pajamas, etc. I ate soba noodles while I was doing it. I only took one real break, and during some of the verbal sections I carried on an unrelated conversation with my fiance. I was mean and frantic and shushed him during the math ones. ("CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF TAKING THE SAT?" is not something I expected to shout at my significant other as a late-late-twentysomething.)

First I had to write the essay. That surprised me--for some reason I was convinced that the essay portion was last. In my essay, I talked about Temple Grandin, Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, Kathleen Stockett and The Help, and John Lennon. Oh, and some Apple commercials. No, it did not make a lot of sense, even to me.

The first test section I came across was Math. It was a disaster. While I wasn't having a hard time doing doing a fair number of the problems, one of the downsides of not using anything other than basic math for the better part of a decade means that when you suddenly start doing algebra and geometry again, you are SLOW. I ran out of time on question 13 of 20 on that first section. In fact, I ran out of time on all the Math sections. So were I in an actual testing environment, I would have failed the SAT math because of timing issues. I gave myself an additional 5-10 minutes for these sections so I could see how I can do content-wise. Yes, that does constitute cheating. 

The Writing and Reading Comp sections were intertwined, which I didn't realize at first. They were pretty easy, surprisingly. All of the vocabulary now has tons of context. There are no more analogies, guys! Who knew? The reading passages are bone-dry and one was even on black holes. I am personally afraid of outer space (I know, it's a weird fear), so that was not my favorite. The writing multiple-choice questions made you edit sentences. Most of them were totally obvious.

I should add that in taking the online practice test (which itself is an inaccuracy--teens have to take paper tests for the actual SATs), several times when I tried to submit and advance to the next section, the program got flaily and I lost my answers. So I had to go back and redo all those questions. Yes, I punched something and released a strain of profanity. Luckily, I was home alone at the time.

By the time I was down to Section 7, I was finding it difficult to care. There was a lot of construction noise outside of my apartment, and I started to get distracted. I raced through the test. I just wanted to be done, but the questions were endless. And then, after the magical 10-minute final section, I was.

Since this is already the longest blog post ever, I will continue tomorrow with my score and some thoughts on what I learned from taking the SAT--and how that's going to help me revise my WIP.

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