Flyby Tries: Taking the New SAT

During the long weekend, with psets to do and midterms to study for, I made a totally rational decision that anyone in my position would have: I took the new SAT for fun on a Saturday night. Nothing says “lit” like taking a standardized test of your own volition.

Back in my glory days (read: high school, two years ago), the SAT was an ancient ritual involving #2 pencils, paper Scantrons, and physical calculators. But the College Board, in their infinite wisdom, has now gone digital — shortening the test from three hours to just over two hours. How thoughtful! Now students have a whole extra hour of their lives back to agonize over the three multiple choice questions they were unsure about.

While I did well enough on the SAT in high school to trick Harvard’s admissions office into letting me in, I was curious to see if my brain cells had survived two years of HUDS and questionable amounts of caffeine. Armed with a half bottle of Snapple Iced Tea (the closest thing to a performance-enhancing drug I had on hand) and the desperate need to prove that I hadn’t peaked at 17, I settled into a cozy armchair at 10:30 p.m. with determination.

The first thing I noticed was the drastic change to the reading section. Instead of lengthy passages about banana diseases, there were tiny excerpts from different texts for each question — clearly designed for the TikTok-ravaged attention spans of kids these days (same though). However, to further maximize performance, I’d recommend adding a Subway Surfers split screen option for test takers.

A revamp like this would be great for the students. By Mirika J. Jambudi

It was somewhat interesting to keep up with the rapid-fire passage changes, but the reading section was manageable. I was genuinely relieved to discover that two years of STEM classes hadn’t completely destroyed my literacy skills.

By Mirika J. Jambudi

After the reading section came writing. Again, different passages for almost every question — a stark departure from what I remembered. They’ve added these interesting “student notes” problems that made me question the quality of the notes these supposed students are taking. Still, I wasn’t panicking yet.

I wouldn’t consider myself a math prodigy by any means, but in high school I managed to score an 800 on the math section. The only math class I’ve taken at Harvard was Math 21a during freshman fall — an experience I’ll need decades of therapy to repress and recover from. While all knowledge of multivariable calculus has left my body and soul (what even is an integral??), I assumed I would still be able to do basic algebra.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Somewhere between my Perusall readings and Chem27 psets, I had completely forgotten how parabolas work. PARABOLAS. The things I mastered in seventh grade while simultaneously learning to become a real person. On one hand, I guess this confirms that I’ve never once needed to calculate the vertex of a parabola while reading scientific papers. But on the other hand, I used to be able to do this in middle school. :(

My sheer disbelief that I forgot about parabolas. By Mirika J. Jambudi

At this point, I started to deeply empathize with the contestants on “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader” who start crying when they can’t remember state capitals. If I was asked to factor a quadratic equation right now, things wouldn’t look so hot.

By Mirika J. Jambudi

As the clock inched toward 1 a.m., the caffeine from my Snapple was wearing off, and I found myself starting to feel sleepy. Yet I persevered through the final stretch of the math section — not for knowledge, not for glory, but just for Flyby.

Finally, as my SAT journey came to its merciful conclusion, it was time to face my results. Instead of an actual score, the answer key gave me a range. It was pretty humbling to watch my score drop with every mistake I made.

Looks like your girl has got range? By Mirika J. Jambudi

While this experience may be evidence that I peaked in high school, I’m comforted in knowing that parabolas have played exactly zero role in my collegiate career thus far. I can only hope that ten years from now, I’ll feel the same way about amino acid structures and the organic chemistry mechanisms that I’ve spent countless hours trying to memorize.

Overall, taking the new SAT was a delightful way to procrastinate on my actual work while gaining some perspective. At the end of the day, the things that once seemed life-altering — like standardized tests or club comps — fade into obscurity, replaced by new anxieties, like whether or not I’ll have an internship for this summer (please hire me).

So here’s to the irrelevance of parabolas and the blissful knowledge that perhaps someday, we’ll forget our current stressors, too. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself as I stare at my Canvas to-do list, contemplating whether I should take the ACT next instead of writing my paper.