serious assumption tackling

morning, sir! then, i hurriedly took my seat, wondering what our lecturer was going to do for my first lesson with him.

what is SAT? pop. the first question. scholastic aptitude test. scholastic assessment test. self-assessment test.

warning: this is about my experiences facing SAT 1.
my classmates and i took the test last june. frankly, i must admit that my scores were quite bad. too bad to enter any ivy leagues that our sponsor, sime darby has listed for us. feeling disappointed, i realized that i had actually took the test for granted though i don't know whether others feel the same way i did. well, there's no harm in sharing my own experiences i guess.

1. SAT IS NOT LIKE WHAT YOU ASSUME IT IS.
i somehow nonchalantly thought that doing the exercises from my princeton review, collegeboard and barron's books were actually enough. i didn't finish all of them but then, my mind generated thoughts like, of course you can do it. just look at the questions. all of them are doable. i seriously thought that my so-called sufficient amount of practices were enough to face SAT in just three or so weeks of proper preparation. if that kind of thought ever crossed your mind before, quickly erase it or else destroy it in any way you can before it becomes noxious in your head. DO NOT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED NO MATTER HOW EASY YOU MAY FIND IT WHEN YOU ARE DOING THE PRACTICE TESTS FROM THE BOOKS. my seniors (bankers) kept reminding us that we should focus more on critical reading, practice a lot of maths and improve on our writing section. i listened, but didn't seriously do what they asked us to do especially the CRITICAL READING part. so, from the bottom of my heart, listen to what mr yu jin said about living, breathing, sleeping and eating (for those who are fasting, please do not eat your books no matter how starved you are (^_^)) our SAT books before the test date. if possible, do as many practices you can. one of my facilitators during the commonapp workshop told me that she did at least one critical reading section per day, and she will enter Browns University soon.

2. THE LONG HOURS
the gruelling, mind challenging 4 hours of continuous (5 minutes breaks in between the sections) 10 sections of the famous critical reading, mathematics and also writing. if you think you can sleep only for two or three hours and still survive the whole day without feeling sleepy or stressful, try do the SAT test in full rehearsal. i thought that i can survive this. after all, i survived my biology test in school so why can't i survive this one, right? we are clearly aware that this test clearly emphasizes on the conciseness and precision of time management in answering the questions. i don't need to explain the technical aspects of the test because we can find the directions from our sacred collegeboard SAT books. yes, some of us can certainly survive the long hours but me, i experienced a serious longing for the test to end as i started the sixth section. i guess it was because i was feeling the pressure or else, i was just plain tired. so, here, a very common advice but still, i think i should add here is that we are supposed to GET ENOUGH REST THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TEST. by enough, i mean really rest your mind and sleep in the right position so that your body can sustain the strain of sitting too long on the chairs during exam. who says SAT only challenges your mind? sometimes, standing seems like a boon when u sat for the test.

3. WRITING LIKE WE WERE IN SCHOOL?
unfortunately, for writing section, no, we do not write like we used to in schools for our SPM. at first, i find it very hard to organize my thoughts into proper academic if not factual essay because i was soo used to write narrative essays with its flowery, full of jargons language. our previous lecturer clearly showed the right way of combining facts and personal experiences to produce a splendid essay. a very well written ACADEMIC essay. what i can comment about the topics is that it's basically asking for our OPINIONS. but, what differentiate them with our school essays is that these topics TEST ON OUR MATURITY OF THINKING AND KNOWLEDGE. so, LET'S ALL start thinking out of the box and expand our views of life. it helps me in my writing. (if you want to try to really open up your view on life, jodi picoult is a recommended author)

for now, these are a few things that i can come up with. if i remember anything, i'll post it later or my partner will add. basically, some of you might find the things i typed cannot be that serious but trust me, this is real experience. think it for a second, ok? (^_^)