SATs

The SAT, the most important test a high schooler will take. Do poorly on the SAT and you can kiss your dream college goodbye. You can take the SAT a total of three times. CollegeBoard, the distributor of the SAT, takes your best scores and sends them to your choice of colleges.


In total, I took the SAT 3.25 times. That's right. 3 and one quarter times.  


It was a cool Saturday morning. After having a filling breakfast of oatmeal, I LOVE OATMEAL, I drove my mom and myself to my high school. Having only my learner's permit, my mom accompanied me in the passenger's seat to ensure that in the 0.7 miles between my house and my high school, I didn't crash the minivan.


I arrived at my high school, crash-free, parked the car, hugged my mom goodbye, and headed inside.


After checking in, confirming IDs, and  being informed of our assigned location, I walked to the cafeteria where we were informed to wait until everyone had completed the check-in process. In the cafeteria, students stood around awkwardly, attempting to make small talk, but too stressed about the impending test to have full conversations.


We were tired at 7:30 in the morning, bored with standing around, and nervous with the upcoming test. I just wanted to get this stupid thing over. I remember thinking something nearly identical to that.


All conversation came to a screeching halt as a thundering BOOM sounded. Immediately the BLAAARRRRGH of the fire alarms filled the school with it's obnoxious shrieking.


Combined with the blinding strobe light, I find fire alarms to be one of the most annoying life 
saving devices.


There are plenty of life saving devices that forgo the near the shattering of ear drums and blinding of eyes. For example, if you're drowning,  a rescue tube is pretty wonderful and quiet.


And yes, I understand it is completely necessary to make the shrill of the alarm as ridiculously loud as it is to help those hard of hearing and the seizure the lights go through are to alert the deaf to the potential fire, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.



We all looked around incredulously. A fire drill? Now? No. We weren't going out. We needed to start the SAT. However, a proctor came rushing into the cafeteria shouted that we needed to evacuate. When someone come running in a panic and tells you to get out, you get out. You don't question them, just do it. That drives me crazy.

Making my way to the teachers parking lot, I checked the time. I would check the time frequently throughout our story.

7:45 - 7:50 am:  For the first 5 minutes, the crowd of students remained calm, realizing that yes, sometimes fire alarms go off at the most inconvenient times.

7:50 am: A fire truck, lights flashing, sirens wailing, flew down the road, headed to our school. Those at the school looked around at one another nervously. I heard whispers, "could there really be a fire?" Anything is possible, so yes, a fire is always a possibility. It's just highly unlikely. It wasn't as if it were a normal school day and a student accidentally mixed two chemicals causing the science wing to ignite in flames. The only ones at the school were the janitors, SAT proctors, front office staff, lawn maintenance, and  SAT takers.

7:50 - 7:55 am: Once they pulled around to the front of the school, firefighters leapt from the atop their giant red truck. Six of them darted into the building, ready to save lives.

7:55 - 8:04 am No word from the firefighters. We anxiously waited for at least one of them to run out of the building, covered in soot, out of breath from fighting a raging fire to give us some kind of update.

8:05 am: A firefighter emerged, spotless and relaxed. "Is everything okay?" someone from the crowd asked. He nodded, walked back to the truck to get a walky-talky. More firefighters causally exited the building. They formed a huddle, chatting, joking, as if still hanging out at the fire station.

8:05 - 8:10 am: After going a few minutes without any explanation of the current situation from any adult, people started getting angry. I overheard a lot of angry students, muttering expletives. I sympathized. Although, not angry, I too felt a twang of frustration.

When you play sports, you get into this zone right before the game. You mentally prepare yourself to go out there and give 100%. You are ready for the game to start. It's the same way with the SATs. You are mentally prepped, accepting that yes, you do have to take this test today. So when it is rudely interrupted by BLAAAARRRRGGGHH, you are not happy.



8:10 - 8:15 am:  At this point, groups of students made the executive decision that taking the SAT on this specific day wasn't worth all of the drama.


Without letting anyone, the proctors, the front office staff, the head SAT leader, know, handfuls of students filed into cars. Those without cars or without friends with cars, walked over the bridge, all destined for home. I longed to be one of them, free from this circus.


8:15 am: The firefighters loaded back into their enormous truck and drove back to the fire house.


With the amount of people a firetruck holds and the different locations to sit in the truck, a fire truck reminds me of a clown car. With a firetruck, people pop out of all different places. You'll have 6 come out of the front of the truck, no sweat, then 2 show up from the back, another guy is hanging on somewhere on the middle, and look up, what's that? There's a firefighter on top of the truck! It's a game to find all of the firefighters.


8:15 - 8:25 am: With the first rebellious group completely out of sight, more and more of us yearned for the same freedom. Countless inner monologues played out throughout the waves of students. In our minds, we argued without ourselves,

I'm leaving. No, I'm not. I can't. I'm going to. I'm not even in the right state of thought to take the SAT. But, I already checked in. What will happen if I just go? Won't they worry about my disappearance? Can I get my money back? Would they count this as scoring a 0 on the SAT? Has anyone ever scored a 0? Don't you get 50 points just for filling out your name correctly? No, I'm just going to wait a few more minutes.

Once we argued internally, we argued with one another out loud. One student played the role of rational, calm, level-headed friend intent on staying to complete the SATs, while the other, frustrated, antsy, ready to throw it to the wind, and risk a possible 0 on the SATs.

After the conversation concluded, roles reversed and again arguments broke out all over the parking lot.

For my friend Bing, I first took the overwhelmed role as he calmly explained why we needed to stay. A few minutes later, Bing said,

"You're right, we should just go."

I argued that we couldn't leave yet. And we made a deal to stay for another 5 minutes. Once the 5 minutes elapsed, we would leave the school and never look back - until Monday, when we had to go to school again.



8:20 am: At least 30% of the students once outside, waiting for their chance to demonstrate their overall knowledge or waiting for the chance to get the SAT over with, had left. I couldn't really blame them. Here we stood, in the same spot for 45 minutes, on an early Saturday morning without the slightest clue as to what we were supposed to do.

Rumors swirled that whoever was in charge was going to cancel today's SAT and reschedule it for another week. That was it. I was through waiting. I gathered the courage to part from the crowd, slowly, I inched towards the path home, but as I made my daring, although slow get-away, I heard the SAT proctor announce,

Alright, we are going back inside to take the test. 

Choruses of confused, frustrated students called out,

What? What had happened? Where were the details? Remember the firetruck? Was it warranted? Were we really still going to take the SAT? 

I turned back towards the building, my voice joining the concerned students. At this point, it was useless to try and walk home. Some of the proctors were teachers at the school, surely if I walked away, one of them would come get me and bring me back to the test. It was pointless to leave, besides I wanted to know what happened.


Those proctors that weren't our school teachers joined in with the students' displeasure. Their heavy gloom-filled steps thudded against the ground in protest. They too yearned for freedom on this sunny Saturday morning.

We filed back into the school, headed towards the appropriate classroom.

The proctor checked our IDs again as we entered the classroom. I sat towards the front of the room. As more students entered, one question was on everyone's lips, "What happened?"

Finally, one student sauntered into the room with a smug grin on his face. "You're not going to believe what happened," he remarked offhandedly to no one in particular.

The other students and I took the bait immediately, "What happened? Do you know? Who told you?" Even the proctor seemed interested.

The student announced,

Y'know how there are men outside on the riding lawn mowers? One of the them was driving it back into the storage room, lost control, and instead DROVE A LAWN MOWER SIDE OF THE BUILDING! The lawn mower CAUGHT FIRE, EXPLODED, causing the fire.

No, there was no possible way that could be even remotely true. I stared incredulously at the boy. A girl entered the room to catch the tail end of the story. She too had heard the tale from others, and said,

I know, it's crazy right? Who drives into a building?  

I've learned that just because two people say something is true, it isn't necessarily true. You wait for someone in charge to confirm the details or you go find the details out yourself. 

Students buzzed left and right about the prospect of an exploding lawn mower. After a few tries, the proctor managed to settle the classroom. She handed out the first part of the SAT which required us to fill in our name, test date, home address, birth date, high school, high school address, exact time of birth, favorite color, dream getaway. Ok, they don't ask for the last three things, but they do ask for A LOT of information. 


Even as I filled in my life details, my mind focused on the lawn mower. I had so many unanswered questions:

1. What happened to the person driving the lawn mower? 
2. Who put out the fire? The firefighters didn't. I stood near the truck with the giant hose the entire time. They never used it.  
3. We have a STORAGE ROOM for LAWN MOWERS? We don't even have enough classrooms. We have trailers. How do we have a lawn mower storage room?

I guess by SO MANY unanswered questions what I really meant was that I had 3 unanswered questions. Apparently, 3 questions is my definition of SO MANY questions.


Finally, it was time to take the SAT. I looked at the clock which read 9:00 am. We were supposed to start the test at 8:30 am. This exploding lawn mower was cutting into my Saturday.


We started the SAT with the essay section. I opened the booklet which asked something about Abraham Lincoln being the best leader of the U.S.


My mind raced,combining thoughts of explosions, lawn mowers, Abraham Lincoln, his hat resulting in one
overwhelming thought of Abraham Lincoln, dressed up, top hat and all, riding a lawn mower into the side of the building causing a massive explosion. 


The headlines would read: ABE LINCOLN MASSIVE LAWN MOWER EXPLOSION! SAT POSTPONED!


After minutes of attempting to focus myself, I realized there was no way I could write a decent essay. All I wanted was to somehow link my essay to the bizarre occurrence of earlier in the morning. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I didn't see linking our former president with a riding lawn mower as stellar SAT essay material.


I peered around the classroom to see students writing fervently. I motioned to the proctor. She walked over, leaning over my desk. I quietly explained that I wanted to cancel my scores as I couldn't concentrate. She nodded her head, sympathetic to my struggle, she whispered to me, "They should have canceled this. Do you know where the guidance counselor's office is? That's where you need to go to cancel your scores."

Being the SATs were held in my school, I knew the location of the guidance counselors. I walked down the empty hallway and entered the office. I smiled as I recognized the guidance counselor.

"I'm here to cancel my scores!" I announced.
"Let me guess, with everything that happened this morning, you can't focus enough to take the test, right?" she asked.
"Exactly."
"I knew I should have sent everyone home and postponed the test" she replied, shaking her head in frustration.
"Yes, that would have been nice" I replied matter-of-factly. "Also, what happened to the man driving the lawn mower? Is he alright?"
"I have no idea" she responded. "Alright, I will cancel your scores. You can go home."
"Thank you." I left and walked home, contemplating the events of earlier in the morning.

Point of the Story: To this day, I have NO IDEA what happened to the man DRIVING the lawn mower. I hope he was alright. Some people say they saw him running away as not to get in trouble. I'm not sure if that's true, but if it is, where did he go?