SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test which is a standardized test given primarily by all students in the US after high school to apply at a university for an undergraduate program. In Pakistan also every year thousands of students give the SAT to apply for universities at US, Turkey or for simply LUMS here at Pakistan.
I completed my Intermediate from Bahria College Islamabad which is considered as one of the most prestigious colleges of Islamabad. I still remember being in 1st Year, planning and discussing on what to pursue after I’m done with F.Sc and as a part of that discussion sprung up the dream to go to LUMS, which is considered as one of the best business schools of Pakistan. Unbeknownst about what is the criteria for admission, we all started researching and discussing on what we need to do to apply for LUMS. Eventually we found out that LUMS that year had made giving the SAT compulsory for admission to the university.
Now we had heard the word “SAT” a lot here and there but we weren’t sure what it was. We had no idea what the test was about and how difficult it can be. Totally unaware and ignorant about the nitty gritty of such an arduous test we didn’t pay much attention on properly preparing for it. Not even aware of the fact that there are limited seats for the test we left the registration process for the end, three to four of us had to then eventually register at Lahore as all the seats at Islamabad had been filled. It definitely seemed like a fun adventure to go together all the way to Lahore just to give a test and we all were very foolishly excited about it. A night before the test we were enjoying ourselves at the Fortress, thinking how hard can it be?
January 24th, the big day came, our test center was LUMS. We arrived there well before time and to our surprise we got to know that to give the test we needed a valid passport as identity. We were under the illusion that any identity would work and we argued a lot with the management over letting us give the test. They obviously had to follow the policy and only one among us gave the test who had a valid passport. That one person also later on went on to score only in 1500s out of 2400.
We sat there shocked on what had just happened and how were we so unaware, we went back disappointed. I later gave the test in March and scored a really low score of 1510. I was again in denial and in shock on what was wrong with me. Is my English and Mathematics really that bad? I asked myself. That’s when I had a huge realization about the quality education being imparted in our intermediate system. The aim of the SAT is to test you on what you have learned in high school and if you were good at High School, you should be doing good in the SAT. But that was not the case when it came to intermediate students, I saw people with 90% in intermediate getting SAT scores of 1400s which is considered a really below average score.
The SAT mainly has three sections, Critical Reading, Writing and Mathematics along with a 25 minutes essay. I was really good at writing essays and I even got 9/12 in the first attempt but what I was really bad at was Critical Reading, which was one of the toughest sections for anyone.
Now being hit once and aware of all the details, I decided to give the test again. This time I joined a formal academy on SAT for 2-3 months and gave the test in December. I scored 1830, it was a pretty decent score and I was more than happy on what I had achieved. Although, all the O/A levels students may scoff while reading this but 1830 was a big thing for me, especially being an intermediate student.
I evaluated all these series of events in my life and realized many things.
General Reading is one of the most important things in any individual’s life. Reading not only builds your perspective but also improves your vocabulary and the basic sentence structures in your mind. Had I been an active reader from the beginning I would’ve aced the Critical Reading section with ease. Many people take cover on the fact that Bill Gates was a dropout but little do they know that he reads about 10-15 books every year! So you may get a formal education, boast about it and even make a lot of money but you can never be as successful as people like Bill Gates if you don’t do learning and perspective building by reading books.
The quality of education in Intermediate system especially for English needs to be upgraded. There should be a lot of novels and books in the curriculum, so the average student has a strong foundation once he’s done with his basic education. Young people should be encouraged on reading a lot of books because growing up I saw books as something really boring and useless which was really ignorant and foolish of me. What you gain from books is unparalleled. Other than that, our educational institutes providing intermediate education should also facilitate all the students in tests like these and make them aware of all the details of such tests and the intensity of challenge they may pose to a person.
Don’t underestimate anything in your life. Prepare for everything to the last detail and develop an analytical mind which evaluates things by reasoning and logic. This small investment of reading every day will benefit you a lot, whether it’s while giving the SAT or while giving the GMAT or GRE after you’re done with undergraduate studies. Reading is a blessing only the wise can value.
