For me, the SAT rocks in many ways and one of them is its Score Report. A great deal of information can be derived from it besides the bottom-line number. I suspect that college admission officers pay a fair bit of attention to these details so we should ponder a little over them ourselves. Many cool features, especially for those planning on multiple sittings are available (optional) with the SAT Score Report too. The Question-and-Answer Service and Student Answer Service spring to mind but that’s another blog for another day.
College Board schedules state that SAT results are out (online) about 3 weeks after test-day and Official Score Reports delivered (hardcopy post) about 5. The Summary of Results in the report shows the number of questions answered correctly, incorrectly and skipped for each section of the test and the Score Details present the breakdown of the types and levels of difficulty of these questions together with their answers against those submitted.
So what do SAT score reports say about us? Obviously, the aggregate and section scores are the central items in them. This is what SAT is about in the first place. But not so obviously, other indicators reveal a lot to the college admission office too. For example, missing an easy question may deem us sloppy and getting tricked by a difficult one, not sharp. Skipping a grid-in in Math or forgoing the essay in Writing may portray us as not savvy and not showing improvement in retakes may well end it on the spot.
There, the good admission officers at those aspired colleges can already have a fairly good idea of the applicants without even meeting them. Folks should thus have their own eyes open to what they open to the eyes of others. What these reports implicitly show may just be subtle attributes but they can be clinchers in tight situations. Awareness is the first step and if you do set about to appear good at SAT, chances are you will get indeed good at it in the course of doing so.
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