Article #3 - SAT Prep

As the year is coming to an end and the date to take the SAT exams is coming closer and closer, the juniors in Jamaica High School are busy preparing for this test and are full of anxiety.

The SAT exam, which is a standerized test for college admission in the United States, is a vital part to get an admission into a good college.

While the SAT exam may seem like a difficult test to ace its format is rather simple. The SAT is composed of two twenty-five minute sections and one twenty minute section of a total of fifty-five math questions. There is also two twenty-five minute sections and one twenty minute section of critical reading which has sixty-seven multiple choice questions consisting of nineteen sentence completion problems and forty-eight reading comprehension problems in which students will be asked to read short and long passages. Lastly, their will be a writing part in which students will have to write an essay in about twenty-five minutes and will be tested on their vocabulary. They will also have to answer a few multiple choice questions about proper sentence structure.

Even though the SAT is mostly composed of multiple choice questions, this three hours and fifteen minute test gets tedious and tiresome during the middle. Nevertheless, the juniors in Jamaica High School are still determined to prepare well for this test which they will be taking either in May or June of this school year.

Many students have signed up for the free SAT classes that Jamaica High School is providing for juniors who are willing to dedicate themselves on April 5 and 12 and May 3, 10, 17, and 31 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Ms. James, the college advisor, said that they already have their seventy students and as of now eleven students are on the waiting list.

Aside from these classes many students have decided to take private SAT course to help them enhance their scores. “I’m taking Kaplan classes and studying like an hour a week because I have to score higher to get into Stony,” said Philipnary Thuyamany, a junior in Jamaica High School.

In conclusion, the SAT is not just another ordinary test to be taken lightly. Rather, the juniors in Jamaica High School are all frantically and anxiously preparing for this test so they could enroll in a well suited college in the future. “I’m nervous about this test because it counts for your future,” said Corean Saliard. So if you haven’t yet started to study for the SAT the smart thing would be to start soon. The dates for the SAT are coming closer and the time for preparation is limited.