TOW #20: "Big Score", Elizabeth Kolbert

What does SAT even stand for? After reading “Big Score”, an essay written by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker, the reader learns that the letters SAT stand for itself and no longer have a meaning. The reader learns this through the author retelling a mother’s journey to retake the SATs as an adult, and the process that she goes through while completing the task. Kolbert uses anecdotes and metaphors to show through a mother’s experience how the SATs are more difficult today than they were in the past.

            Kolbert uses many anecdotes to retell the history of the SATs while she explains the task to prepare for them. Kolbert adds an anecdote about the founder of the SATs, “Brigham intended the test to be administered to students who had already been admitted to college, for the purposes of guidance and counseling. Later, he argued that it was foolish to believe, as he once had, that the test measured “native intelligence.” Rather, he wrote, scores were an index of a person’s “schooling, family background, familiarity with English, and everything else.” Kolbert shares this to show how the more that the SAT is evolving, the more stressful it is becoming for students. Since the SAT has a different intent than was originally thought to have by the founder, than it may not be the best test for determining whether or not a student is smart enough to get into college. This anecdote allows the reader to understand the stress that is put on people preparing for the SATs because it tests more than just one’s intelligence.

            Kolbert also uses metaphors to help the reader understand the mother’s experience. She starts off by telling how when she took the SATs in high school, she was not successful. Despite, her unsuccessfulness, she managed to become a successful publisher. She uses a metaphor to explain how times are not the same for her son now, as they were for her when she was in high school. “The land I would be sending my little tadpole into was a different place.” This metaphor shows the pain that parents feel for their children who are taking the SATs. The SATs are not only more difficult than they were in the past, but there is also a lot more competition out there. Students can no longer rely on getting a good job out of college. This is why it is important for students to do well on the SATs so they get into the best college, and have the best opportunity to get a good job following college. Today’s competiveness only adds to the stress of students, and makes the current SATs more difficult than they have ever been.

            It is hard for parents to understand the stress that students have when taking the SATs. The test is much different than it was in the past, and that is why Kolbert retells the story of a mother trying to retake the SATs as an adult to help other parents understand the difficulty of the current SATs. Kolbert uses anecdotes and metaphors to prove how today’s SATs are more difficult than they have ever been.