SATs: Progressive or just torture?

Are SATs (and other standardized tests) progressive? I vote no.

The torture of the SAT is unbearable…you spend hours after hours after hours studying for one stupid test. Then, you get up WAY too early on a Saturday morning and go take the stupid FIVE HOUR LONG test. Then, by the time you’re done, you’re exhausted and just want to go to sleep. Then, you’re stuck waiting three or four weeks before you get your results. During this time, you ponder how well you did. As the day draws nearer, you start getting a little sick to your stomach. Part of you desperately wants to know your score whereas the other part tells you that you don’t, because you’ll only be disappointed (pessimist). The day arrives. You slowly approach the computer and sit down. Forcing yourself not to think, you go to collegeboard.com. There you type in your sn and pw. This brings you to the “My Organizer” page that stupidly tells you your SAT scores are in. You hesitate, and then quickly press “View My Scores.” You’re close to throwing up by this point. You close your eyes. This is the moment of truth. You open your eyes to find out that the pessimistic side of you was right. You shouldn’t have looked. Sighing, you realize your score means that you’re going to have to take it AGAIN and go through the entire torturous process AGAIN.

So…I ask you…what is the point of all that torture for a test that doesn’t tell you anything. All the SAT tells you is how well you can take the SAT. I know brilliant people who have bombed the SAT and average scholars who have aced it (and then I know a lucky few who have both and I hate them :P). Studying for the SAT doesn’t prepare me for college. It just teaches me loopholes in taking the SAT that I can’t use in other schooling. It doesn’t teach me anything new or useful for the future. How can wasting so much time on this be rational?

Also, why is so much emphasis placed on the SAT (and ACT)? My college, for example, gives out scholarships based on SAT scores. So now I’ll have to go take it again because I know I can make it to the next scholarship level, so I have to waste more time studying, $43 on the test, $20 on gas (because there’s no testing location within an hour), and money on snacks. Then I’ll have to get up at 6 AM AGAIN on a Saturday morning.

Anyway…I know I appear to be ranting, and to some extent I am. I’m just annoyed and even outraged that I have to waste so much time (that I SO don’t have) on something so trivial that people have made a big deal.

(Oh and for anybody wondering, I got a 1970 this time.)