by Syd Jackson

I’m sure, as a first-year college student, you can clearly remember the apprehension, pressure, and stress surrounding college entrance exams, more specifically the SAT. Everybody, I’ve met at least, resents the College Board. Not only are their tests extremely expensive but arguably, and rightfully so, unfair. However, we very rarely question them. And nah, I don’t mean the typical, “why do I have to take this test?” but the real deep stuff like who made them so high and mighty? The major issue within the rigid confines of the test is that it is supposed to equally evaluate students but as we all know the truth and it’s plain as day: that test, and those like it, are catered towards a certain kind of intellect. For now, we’ll call that scholarly aptitude.

As affirmed by Stanley Fish in his work, What Should Colleges Teach?, what the SAT expects is that students be taught how to write “clean English sentences” or more simply put what it refers to as standard English. The multiple choice writing and language portion of the test does not account for vernacular languages, accents, or regional differences but simply asks the tester to “correct” sentences. They’re essentially claiming that scholarly aptitude can be measured through standard English. That simply isn’t true and by digging into the history of how the SAT got its name one can clearly see that.

Lemme break it down for you. Around the 1890s is when the SAT first started getting developed. Back then they, they being big ivy league schools like Princeton and Columbia, saw a need to set some sort of standard for who got to come to college even though Joe Smoe jobs were much more popular. Da 1920s was a time for recovery. One’s gotta remember dat ‘Merica was just coming out of the first World War. Most people had better things to worry bout after a ground shaking experience like dat. So in 1926, when Scholastic Aptitude Test was launched dere won’t too much public say. If dat name sounds familiar it should cuz take each first letter and it makes the thing we all know and love: the SAT. Originally, and still, the test was made to assess the overall intelligence of the test taker. It was derived from a government test, Army Alpha, and intended to serve as the ultimate IQ test for college admissions staff (Cheng). For that reason, in its early days the SAT won’t even made to test things you supposed to learn in school. There won’t no test prep, pretest, nothin likes we has today.The reason being was that them people wanted to test one’s raw ability.

Eventually people got upset about the name and test. Aptitude is a foul word directly related to ability. To say it bluntly, the test was used to tell whether you smart or not. To fail the test meant you was gonna be a failure in life. To escape the tension, the test changed. Instead of being a one and done type deal it became mo flexible. In 1993, the College Board dropped the full name, Scholastic Aptitude Test. They replaced it with several variations since then such as Scholastic Assessment Test. On record, they say dat today the SAT stands for nothing but they kept the acronym SAT cuz it’s well recognized and they don’t wanna cause confusion (Cheng). They gotta a fair point, but they also needa count for the ongoing legacy they continue by refusing to completely change the name. There’s still a stigma around dat test, regardless of the “name” change it’s still associated with one’s overall academic ability and IQ. To try and change that the College Board has restructured the test several times. A prime example is when they restructured the test in 2016. I was just 12 years old when I enlisted as a guinea pig to try the new format. ‘Course back den I ain’t understand all that, I just knew I was gonna to get a $15 books-a-million gift card. Apparently, I was part of the first group to take a three part test consistin’ of, “ evidence-based reading and writing, math and an optional essay”(Gumbrecht). Changin da criteria gave the test a bit more predictability and shifted the focus from natural abilities and instinctual knowledge to an overall reflection of a person’s education. But here’s the key takeaway from the College Boards messy story: if they did it before, they can do it again. Throughout the history of the SAT they have completely shifted what they test and how they test it. These changes been a direct response to public opinion so we simply gotta show em wat’s important. When it comes to incorporating and accurately assessing vernacular language and college readiness they simply need to make changes again.

As stated by Vershawn Young, there is a perceptin in ‘Merica that people who speak a vernacular language are dumb. And half of dat come from minorities’ “low” test scores. In our country, a whole bunch of African American children are lagging behind in our public education system. Go a lil deeper and you’ll find that African American boys are the farthest behind outta any of us (McMillian 3). Go a lil more deeper and you’ll find that dez kinda things happen all the time in rural school systems. Go way deeper and you’ll find that this don’t make no kina sense. Think about it, in regards to a primary public school education, South Carolina has plum shameful rankins all around. So how is it dat one group is expected and is assessed to much farther behind da others? Think bout it, factually speakin in America there is a thing called the “racial achievement gap” which summarizes the disproportionality in education between people of primarily European descent and people of primarily African descent (McMillian 2). Cuz we as a country only wanna test tings in their standard form, which ain’t being taught equally dez chidlin is “behind”. In math you gonna have to perform the operation a certain way to get points, in science the experiment gotta follow a certain list of steps, and in english the sentence gotta be written a certain way: standard english. For the record I ain’t gotta right in standard English to use parallel structure like I jus did. Now lets get back to how we started this expose: questioning. Above all else we needa ask ourselves , how does the SAT make they test? Ya know what I’ve noticed from the endless test reviews is that everything in there has gotta grain of truth or real world application so it stands to reason that the english section must be da same. If on the writing and language section of the test, the “wrong answer” is written in vernacular english a vernacular user will pick it every time cuz that how they talk. Take for example a standard question like number 43, pictured above. Specifically speakin, my slang or African American Vernacular English does not pay much mind to subject verb agreement. Da “correct” tense ain’t an issue in our communication but is commonly tested ting on da SAT. To disregard tense like we do in day to day life is wrong on da SAT. Dis question singles out vernacular users cuz it don’t sound wrong to us. To get it right we gotta retain our brain ta tink in standard english. It hard to keep two opposing ideas in your mind and still function, especially on da SAT. After so many “incorrect” answers I’m sure a testing machine will note dat dis tester has an issue with subject verb agreement as well as tense usage signaling dat this child is low education, low income and/or African American. Dez are all demographics

dat are signed out by test questions like dis. So I’ll ask you is vernacular users not smart enough to be “college ready” or is the test set up against them and their language?

There’s plenty of people in dis country to debate over dat answer but the important thing is dat College Board and structures like it can in fact be inclusive to vernacular languages in fact they’ve always been. Take for example da Readin section of the test. Everybody hates reading dat long confusin poem from what seems like just before the fall of the Roman Empire but they incorporate it into assessing academic ability. They even include footnotes to aid test takers in dey understandin. Why might you, and hopefully you will after all this digging, ask? Da answer is simple they wanna see if you understand a language other than your own which is most commonly Old English. I’m only speakin freely now because the confines been lifted, otherwise I risk lookin uneducated. It’s because as Young stated the attitudes or public opinion. Changing the SAT gotta start with what Fish pointed out the metrics by which evaluate education. Dey changed da test before, dey can change it again. They could do the very same thing with other vernaculars and yet they haven’t. In all da other cases test takers, teachers, tutors, parents and anybody else who has a bone to pick with the College Board demanded change and change followed. Here is where it becomes a choice: one between morals and values and the other between practicality and circumstance. In a perfect world, we could all say and speak how

we want but we live in an imperfect world where many think it better to abandon culture and change rather than starve. We all know dis, learning standard English is da difference between success and failure. We’s gotta change dat expectation and it starts here with da SAT da gateway to opportunity for yongins. If we don’t change it, we gonna miss out on brilliance just because it wasn’t communicated in the standard way.

Works Cited:

Ben. “A Brief History of the SAT and How It Changes.” Peterson’s, Peterson’s, 27 Feb. 2020, https://www.petersons.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-the-sat-and-how-it-changes/.

Cheng, Allen. “The Complete Story: What Does Sat Stand for?” The Complete Story: What Does SAT Stand For?, PrepScholar, 15 July 2021, https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-does-sat-stand-for.

Fish, Stanley. “What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Sept. 2009,

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/what-should-colleges-teach-part-3/.

McMillian, Monique. “Is No Child Left behind ‘Wise Schooling’ for African American Male Students?” The High School Journal, vol. 87, no. 2, University of North Carolina Press, 2003, pp. 25–33, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40364302.

Gumbrecht, Jamie. “Major Changes Coming to 2016 Sat Test | CNN.” CNN, CNN, 6 Mar. 2014, https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/living/sat-test-changes-schools/index.html.

Viera, Mariana. “The SAT Is a Reinforcement of America’s Social Inequality.” Teen Vogue, 1 Oct. 2018,

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mired-in-racism-and-elitism.

Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writer Use They Own English.” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies , 2010,

https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/english/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2021/01/Use-They-Own.pdf.