Common Urban SAT Myths

By Anthony Russomanno, Premier Tutor & Admissions Expert for The Princeton Review

You’re familiar with Urban Myths.  They start quite harmlessly.  Did you hear about the guy who bought a Chihuahua in Mexico only to find out that it was a rat?  Get the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe?  Or how you can stand a raw egg on end during the vernal equinox (March 20)?  Anyway, you get the point.  The SAT has spawned its own set of Urban Myths, which have been passed down from generation to generation of high school students.

Everyone knows the old stand-by that says “you get 600 points just for spelling your name right.”  Well actually you don’t even have to spell it right.  The SAT doesn’t know or care how you spell your name.  In truth the lowest composite score on the SAT is a 600, so this one is partially true. 

Another one is theat “some test administrations (like November is easier than October) are easier than others” scam.  The test difficulty does vary a bit, BUT the test is scored on a curve so it makes absolutely no difference.  Furthermore you can never know when a test form will be easier or harder so people who try to predict it are selling you some swamp-land.

My personal favorite is that “if you take your test in a place where people don’t score well then your score will be higher.”  I knew a girl who was prepared to drive to a small town in another state, which shall remain nameless, because she thought it would help her score.    In reality, the grade curve applies to every student that takes the SAT for that administration – the whole United States.  Don’t drive hours to take the test.  It won’t help. 

And speaking of another state, many people tell you that “taking the test after a night of partying and little-to-no sleep will actually help your score.”  Wrong.  Friday night should be like any normal school night for you.  Don’t stay up and party, but don’t go to bed right after dinner either.  Both are detrimental.

There are a whole slew of myths about the letters you choose.  “The same letter can’t be right three times in a row,” “C is the most popular answer,” Statistically every answer has the same chance of being correct every time.  There is no pattern – ever.  Bummer.

Upon polling our SAT folks across the nation we came up with the following gems:

• “If you take the exam with your ears plugged you’ll do better.”
  
  
• “If you put chapstick, blistex, Vaseline or rub tin foil on the edge of your scantron with the black lines, you’ll get a 2400.”
  
  
• “You automatically go up 100 points from your PSAT to your SAT.”
  
  
• “If you don’t put down your HS code, no one will ever know that you took the test.”
  
  
• And our favorite at The Princeton Review, “The SAT is a measure of how smart you are.”

In the final analysis, Urban Myths are fascinating and there are books published that are full of all the nonsense started over all the years.  So, don’t believe everything that you hear, and remember never flash your lights at cars with their lights off because everybody knows what happens then….

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