One-three-letter acronym has terrified high school students all over America for the past .
This is one test that has mortified and terrified high school students beyond .
their wildest imaginations. It has been the one test that seems to hold the key to their entire futures, but .
should it? No. The SAT's does not really test a person's aptitude, but the way they can take this .
particular test. Students who do well on the SAT aren't necessarily smart; they may just be good at .
manipulating the system. Some well known outstanding colleges have even begun to question the .
validity of using the SAT's to measure the competency of a person applying to college. If the SAT's .
measure a person's intelligence, what does it say for the student who has a 3.9 GPA but a 750 SAT .
score? .
To measure persons aptitude on a single test is unreliable and unfair to say the least. Putting so .
much emphasis on a test that neither tests the knowledge or the mental competence of a person is a .
very crude manner of selecting college candidates. Ironically, even the College Board, which is in .
charge of the SAT's, also agree that the test is not truly meant to test a person's intelligence. They .
refer to the test as "a relatively good way of predicting how well a student will do in college. It's a .
measure of a student's ability to answer questions at a given place and time." If what the College .
Board says is true, than why should the test matter so much? There's a big difference in going to a .
SAT prep course and learning how to navigate it than actually being smart and literate enough to know .
what "surreptitious" means. .
Richard Atkinson, the psychologist who is President of the University of California, suggested .
in a speech that the SAT was not a valid way of judging a student's academic aptitude. Atkinson .
suggested what many others have been thinking all along, that the SAT doesn't necessarily measure .
