A Cambridge University student attempted to sit an American university entrance exam to see how it compares to UK equivalents, and her results left her speechless.
The famous SAT exams are referenced countless times across US TV shows and movies, and we’re all bound to have heard American characters complaining about studying, worrying about the results, and comparing their scores with one another.
But this British student decided to see how hard the exam really was.
Erin Meryl studies economics at Cambridge University, and she shared her SAT results on her TikTok page @erinmerylstudy last year.
The top student has raked in over four million likes for her study tips, and she quipped: “Why do Americans get so worked up about the SAT? It is not that hard.”
She added: “You cannot watch an American television show without them going on and on about how hard the SAT is- it’s kind of done as a university entrance exam it seems. And so, I thought I have nothing better to do this Friday morning, so let me attempt an SAT practice test to see how hard it really is.”
According to The Princeton Review, an SAT is an entrance exam used by most colleges and universities to make admission decisions. The test takes the form of a multiple-choice based quiz on a computer which is administered by the US College Board, reported The Mirror.
“The purpose of the SAT is to measure a high school student’s readiness for college, and provide colleges with one common data point that can be used to compare all applicants,” The Princeton Review states.
After looking through a practice SAT examination paper, Erin discovered that there are two modules of reading and two modules of mathematics. She read the questions on a tablet and wrote her answers in a notebook.
Midway through the test she said: “So I am a couple of questions into the reading section and it is literally like ‘which word fills the gap to complete the sentence?’.”
The student said she found that a lot of the questions are simple comprehension. She was baffled after finding the first question on the maths section asked students to find 10 per cent of 470.
Erin got 30 out of 33 for one English section, and 31 out of 33 on the second. In maths she got 25 out of 27 on the first section and 26 out of 27 on the second. She worked out she landed a total score of 1470-1520 on the SAT.
However, she added that she did not answer the questions under a time limit and pointed out this could make it harder in a real examination setting. “But they’re not objectively hard questions,” she added.
A number of American people commented on her social media video, explaining the meaning of the scores, and which university you could get into.
One person commented : “That score could get you into Harvard.” Another added: “The scores you got put you in the top 97%-99%.”
A third said: “I looked up if 1470 was a good score and it said you scored higher than 97% of people and it said 1520 was enough to safely get into Harvard or Yale.”
An American man explained: “The SAT isn’t meant to be difficult in terms of content, it’s designed to assess your problem solving ability in a timed setting, not necessarily if you know the content.”
But one other pointed out: “Doing the test untimed defeats the whole purpose lol, the time crunch is most of what makes it hard.”
Another agreed: “The whole point of the SAT is the limited time. If you remove the timing your score means nothing.”
One other explained: “American here, I’ve never heard anybody that said it’s hard. It’s not designed to be hard. A 1500 is pretty good, though. Not quite Ivy League level but close.”