November SAT Scores Are Back (learn from my experience!)

November SAT will go down in my book as the test that was ruined by the proctor. (I'm refraining from sad face emoticon.)

You can see the posts about my terrible test day experience here and here. Don't let this happen to you!

Test conditions really do make a difference; know your rights for a fair test experience before you go into the SAT. Here are the official SAT test day rules. Be sure to read pages 1-11.

My reading score is absolutely a reflection of the broken rules. I never even read an entire passage because the proctor lopped off five minutes, mid-section.

Here's what I'd advise, post terrible experience:

• Keep your own time (including the end time). BIG mistake for me not to do this. I trusted the proctor -- because all the proctors I'd had before had done their job! I've now heard that messing up the time is common (though I've never heard of a proctor lopping off five minutes mid-section).

• Try to get a proper desk (not a deskette, which does fit the official rules but does not lead to an optimal experience).

• If there is noise, say something. I tried to wave down the proctor during sections 7-10 when the noise became so loud that I might as well have been taking the SAT in the middle of a basketball game, but he was reading something and never looked up.

You live, you learn.

I did contact the test administrator for the next (and final) SAT I'll be taking in 2011 as part of this project to alert her about the rules being broken at the last SAT. She was very responsive and I do feel confident that I'll have better conditions.

UPDATE: A friend emailed me this quote:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  --Winston Churchill