The second semester of the school year brings new material for all students to focus on in their classes. However, many juniors have seen a change in their classes as they begin to do practice for the SAT, which will be administered at school to all juniors on April 10.

The SAT is given to all Michigan juniors once for free. It is required for all Michigan high school students to graduate, and is how the state tests students’ learning progress in high school.

“I feel like I’m going to fail,” junior Madison Rutan said. “When I took the PSAT, there was so much stuff that I couldn’t remember or had no clue about.”

Due to the test’s strong focus on math and English concepts, it’s no surprise that those classes have been preparing the juniors in the courses for success through class lessons and programs such as Khan Academy’s SAT practice. The Khan Academy resource features questions taken from real SAT exams, and is only available with an account online.

For students who prefer in-class preparation, however, math teachers have been striving to prepare students on a daily basis.

“The class I think prepared me the most,” Rutan said, “was algebra.”
Despite various studying methods, the SAT can still put extreme amounts of pressure on students who aren’t confident test takers and limit the diversity of students admitted to colleges.

“They need a number,” principal Thomas Lietz said in reference to college admissions’ need to decline a certain number of applicants. “Right, wrong, or otherwise, they need a number.”

The pressure that accompanies SAT time is primarily caused by the test being a deciding factor of many colleges in admissions.

Though it’s thought t to have been improved through a recent redesign, it still has issues, according to some.

“It’s a good tool,” Lietz said. “Is it perfect? Not even [sort of].’”

Regardless of a student’s confidence going into the test, it’s crucial that all juniors take this test seriously.

“The SAT is a pretty good estimate of how well a student is going to do in their first semester of college,” Lietz said. “That’s what the SAT is designed to test.”