Cloudy with a Chance…

It is the morning of June 26th, 2009. I find myself waking up to the sound of the phone ringing. My mother walks into my room to answer it, and begins a nice conversation with my grand(great?)aunt. I think to myself, SAT scores come out today! I check my cellphone to see if it is 8 o’clock yet. It’s only 7:49. Dammit!

Netherlevess*, I get out of bed anyway. I walk into the living room, wave to my mother who is ironing her clothes while conversing, and pick up my laptop. I go to CollegeBoard, sign in, and go to the SAT score, with the intention of refreshing the page as soon as 8 am rolls around. But to my surprise, the scores were already up!

Critical Reading: 610… Pretty good. Same as the PSAT.

Math: 740… Holy crap! Seriously???

Writing: 620… A little lower than the PSAT score. But who gives? I got a 740 in Math!

I grab the little stack of Post-It Notes I’ve been doodling on for the past two days to add up the scores. Once I get the final score, I circle it, give a little scream of triumph, and run to my mother in the kitchen. I whisper, “1970!”

I got a 740 on Math, so the addition should be right...

That’s right, party people! You’re incredible, edible (if you’re a cannibal) blogger got a frickin’ 1970 on her SATs! Sooooo much higher than I thought I would get. You see, on the PSAT, I got an 1830. I said that on the actual SAT I would get a 1760, while my friend said that I wold get an 1860. Well, he totally won that bet (thank God there was no cash involved, because I’m broke.)

Now I don’t get the actual test analysis until July 6th, but here’s how I break it down:

Critical Reading:

I got the exact score as I did on the PSAT. And quite honestly I’m not surprised. Throughout the week before the test, I studied the PSAT booklet and compare my study answers to the PSAT one. They were exactly the same. Seriously! If I happen to find my study sheets, I’ll upload them and show them to you! But the same score? No surprise.

Writing:

Okay, so I was mildly disappointed about getting a lower score at first. But when I thought about it a little harder, I figured out why. You see, there is no essay portion on the PSAT. So your PSAT score is strictly multiple choice. On the SAT, I did pretty well on the multiple choice, considering that I skipped a good amount of them (I got a 66 out of 80.) However, my essay screwed me over a little bit. I got a 7. I thought I would get a 4 from each grader. I’m not a very strong writer, I know it. But who’s the jerk that gave me a 3? I know that I had NO spelling or grammar mistakes because I had about three minutes left over and I reread my essay at least 3 times. And my essay was extremely well organized. I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN, YOU DOUCHE-NOZZLE!!! But hey! It’s not like  I’m not mad about it or anything. I did much better than I thought I would, considering the fact that I did HORRIBLY on my study sheets.

Mathematics:

Okay, seriously? What the freak is going on? I got a 580 on the PSAT in my math section. But here’s what it is: I hadn’t taken the Math section of the SAT Prep class in school yet. I was going to take it about a month and a half after taking the PSAT. And I did learn a lot in that class. But I didn’t learn that much (I didn’t think so.) I felt like the math problems were really easy. I was able to finish pretty much all the questions in the math section (the ones I knew how to solve anyway) and had plenty of time left over (at least 8 minutes each time.) So, hey. Looks like Mr. M was a pretty good math teacher afterall. Thanks, Mr. M!

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So, the question that’s (maybe?) on your minds: Will I take the SATs again?

Maybe. You see, I tend to be an overachiever, and the overachiever in me is all like Come on, man!  You’ve got to break 2000. I know you can do it! It’s sooo easy now that you know what the test is like, and you’ll be able to rub it in the faces of all those community-service-doing phonies and AP-class-taking morons in your school! (Apparently, my overachiever is Holden Caulfield.) But on the other hand, I’m a slacker. And the slacker in me (who, as it turns out, is pretty damn logical) is saying Dude. You got a 1970. That’s higher than or on point with the SAT scores of students in the colleges you plan on applying to. It’s WAAAAY higher than your first pick, and your second pick doesn’t even take SAT scores. You’re good where you are. 

Quite honestly, I’m agreeing more with the slacker (I’m a sucker for the logical. Love ya, Spock!) I that know a college or two that I’m thinking about requires you to the SAT subject test, but I really don’t want to (take the test, or go to those colleges) all that much. I’ll stick with the college list I’ve got now, thank you very much.

I’m happy with a 1970. Yay!

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*”Netherlevess” was originally a typo, but I thought it was kind of funny, so I kept it. It’s like when I pronounce scissors like “skizzers” or say “nes-ses-ses-silly” instead of necessarily.