It is a big year for juniors. When you go into your junior year you have to take the SAT. The SAT is a standardized test that is used for college admissions in the U.S. and is owned by College Board. Before 2016, the SAT was not aligned with high school curriculum. In 2016, the test was adjusted to fit the curriculum the students learn through their high school years. The test measures the literacy and writing skills that are needed to be successful in college. Juniors have been preparing for this test ever since they stepped into the school as freshmen.

“I have linked my College Board account with my Khan Academy account and I do practice tests to get ready,” junior Phillip Longueuil said.

There are three major sections to the test. There is the critical reading, math, and writing. Each section is then divided into smaller subsections and so on. The critical reading portion has you read various passages and you answer questions in the order of the reading. The math has a calculator section and no calculator section. The questions vary in difficulty. The harder questions being mostly at the end. With the writing section, there are questions about grammar, sentence improvements, and paragraph improvements. At the end of that section there is an essay that helps show colleges how the students writing and critical thinking skills are. These all come together to form the SAT that the juniors have to take in about three hours and 50 minutes with breaks in between.

Throughout their high school careers, students are prepared to do their best on the SAT. Some teachers do SAT warm-ups and others do SAT passages. There is even a college and workforce readiness class you can take your junior year to help you prepare in the final months approaching the SAT. The class is split into two three week long courses. One of the courses is taught by math teacher Christine Anderson. She helps the students get prepared for the math portion of the test. Then English teacher, Gabriella Schmalenberg, teaches the other three weeks. Schmalenberg helps prepare the students for the various passages the students will have to read during the test. For both courses the students have to take an SAT test based on what they were taught at the beginning of the three weeks, and at the end, to see how much they have improved. It will help the students with what they should do when it is time to take the actual test.

The juniors have worked hard and studied a ton just for this test. This is one of the most important tests for juniors. It practically tells them how they will do in college and how far they have come in their education. Hopefully juniors will get back good results and all their hard work ends up paying off.

“I wish they would do more practice in school, but I do think the hard work will pay off and I am not stressing out about it,” junior Joseph Cardillo said.