Up Your Score (4 page)

When you are entirely free of tension, center your thoughts on how wonderful it will feel to be done with the test, while pronouncing solemn and meditative syllables of wisdom. Close your eyes. Sleep.

3. Paul’s Method: Get Pumped.
Adrenaline is the key. Do not prepare for the SAT the day before. Instead, try to build up as much anxiety and fury as possible in your tortured, nerve-racked body. Do calisthenics. Mosh to hardcore ska. Invite a few friends over and engage in a primal screaming session. Beat your body repeatedly with knotted cords and whips. Break lots of glass. When morning comes, make sure that your pulse is above 250 beats per minute, then break
open the test center doors and destroy the test with your awesome animal energy.

Organizing materials such as your pencils, ID, admission ticket, and prayer manual the night before does not improve your score or general well-being. Disorganization forces you to think fast and deal rationally with unusual situations and problems such as those tricky questions that will undoubtedly appear on the SAT. Finally, don’t go to bed the night before the test. You can catch up on your sleep the first year that you’re dead.

4. Michael’s Method: Be Superstitious.
Superstition is the key. Find three live mice, a number 2 pencil, a proctor, and a college brochure. On the last full moon before the test, boil all of these together in a Teflon cauldron; simmer until golden brown. Chant the following:

“O great
Up Your Score
lords, give me the
strength to defeat the ETS! I am the Gate-
keeper, and I will do as you command!”

If a black cat crosses your path, shoot a mirror with a silver bullet.

The clothes you wear on the test day are very important: If the test is on a rainy day, wear a raincoat. However, if the test is on a day when the Red Sox are playing at home, wear two pairs of socks. If there has been an earthquake during the past week anywhere in Canada, make sure you wear a blindfold during the test (you can take it off during the breaks). Follow these rules, and you are destined to score well.

5. JaJa’s Method: Be Brave.
Bravery is the key. The SAT is not Mount Everest. It’s not Judgment Day. It’s not trying to get into the Kardashian Khaos boutique on its opening day in Las Vegas without being trampled by a thousand pairs of five-inch stilettos. As a living human being, you are smarter than all of the SAT booklets in the world combined (and all of the Kardashians combined, too, I hope. No offense, Kim!), so there’s no reason for you to be scared.

On the morning of the big day, step into the testing center like you’re the next big thing. Before you sit down at a tiny desk for the next four hours, tell yourself about how you are going to destroy the SAT. As you are taking the test, answer each question with confidence, knowing that your first instinct is most likely correct. And after you finish the test, sign your John Hancock with a flourish and march proudly out of the stuffy, sweaty-smelly testing room.

Of course, brave, battle-winning generals are rewarded. When you go home, reward yourself for the valor you displayed by eating a five-star gourmet meal, going to your friend’s wild party, or spending the rest of the day watching a
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
marathon (that might further test your bravery). You deserve it.

6. Larry, Manek, Paul, Michael, and JaJa’s Method: Be Together.
Togetherness is the key. The SAT is a dismal, lonely ordeal. You are isolated not only during the almost-four pathetic hours of solitude that is the test, but also during long, bleak minutes of studying with nothing but this book to keep you company. We have confirmed that the ETS has offshore investments that profit right around testing time, when millions of students rush out to buy Prozac and inflatable companions.

BUT YOU ARE NOT REALLY ALONE! There are millions just like you who no longer need to suffer in silence! Comrades, on the night before the test, find a computer that is connected to the Internet and share your feelings about the ETS with your fellow test takers. Vent your thoughts by sending a pointed e-mail message to the ETS at [email protected], then become a fan of
Up Your Score
on Facebook. There you can find updates from JaJa, trade tips, and commiserate with other poor suckers like you who are preparing to vanquish the ETS. Together we will be strong! And when the sun rises on Saturday morning—we will prevail!

Each of these methods has its merits. People using the first method tend to get higher scores, people using the second method get spiritually enriched, people using the third
method die young, people using the fourth method get locked up, people using the fifth method get charged up, and people using the sixth method get a warm fuzzy feeling. No matter which method you use, be sure to read the wisdom on
page 324
on the night before the test. Don’t peek at it before then.

The conventional answer to this question is that it is made up by the Educational Testing Service, a company based in New Jersey. However, we have discovered that this answer is a cover-up. The real truth about who makes up the SAT is revealed here for the first time in history. . . .

In the beginning, there was no SAT. Students frolicked in their high school paradise without knowledge of evil, able to pick freely from the Tree of College.

But then the Evil Testing Serpent (ETS) silently slithered into the high school through the hot-lunch loading dock. The ETS was the most nefarious, loathsome, malevolent, malicious, odious, insidious, cunning, beguiling, deceitful serpent that ever existed. (It was because of this serpent that high school students have had to learn vocabulary words like the ones in the previous sentence.) The ETS, an unfathomably long, mighty, mucus-encrusted beastie, was determined to bring evil and pain into the paradise. So it devised a plan that would put an end to the happiness of high school students.

This is how the Serpent’s plan was to work. For over three hours students would have to answer an incessant string of multiple-choice questions. The questions would be both boring and tricky. Students who gave too many wrong answers would have miserable futures and then die. He called this hideous ordeal the Slimy and Atrocious Torture (SAT).

The ETS inflicted the SAT on the oppressed masses of students for many years, and the Serpent’s power increased as it drained their meager life forces. Gradually, all resistance was crushed and the tormented youths became accustomed to
taking the SAT. Parents and teachers began to view the SAT as a national institution. Long, bleak years of misery appeared to lie ahead for civilization.

Could no one defeat the ETS? Would this merciless Serpent continue to strangle its victims into submission? Would
Saturday Night Live
ever be funny again? Was there no hope for humanity? Well, it turned out there was. Six ordinary students, born under the tyranny of the ETS, suffered through the unholy SAT with the rest of their comrades. But afterward, they made a secret blood vow to avenge the misery they had suffered at the fangs of the Evil Testing Serpent. They delved into the mysteries of the SAT in the hope of uncovering its weaknesses and defeating it. They soon discovered many ways of psyching out the ETS and outsmarting the SAT. They transcribed their revelations in a stirring document wherein they demonstrated that although the ETS was mean, their readers would be above the mean. The high school paradise was soon restored and students once again were able to pick freely from the Tree of College.

Just when peace was restored, the ETS realized that kids were flocking back to their happy paradise, and its scales shimmered with hatred. One night, as it lay stewing in its miserable New Jersey cave, an idea formed in its so-called mind. Why not make the test
harder
? Maybe add more math questions using terms most adults wouldn’t even understand! Add more insipid reading passages!

And maybe even an essay! Combined, the Slimy and Atrocious Torture would last three hours and 45 minutes, a half hour longer than ever before. The ETS quivered with delight! But not to worry. The five gallant fighters vowed to fight the Serpent, no matter what form it took. So they stealthily searched its cave, and with greater success than the search for weapons of mass destruction, they found its secrets and revised the document.
It is that document you now hold in your sweaty, trembling hands.

Here, the cruel tricks of the ETS will be revealed and you will be shown how to use your understanding of the Serpent’s methods to your own advantage. Throughout this book, the Serpent will make loathsome appearances and will secrete foul venom all over the page to protest our revelations of its weaknesses and its trickeries. Soon you will be able to recognize the Serpent’s infamous tricks and you will live forever free of the fear of the Slimy and Atrocious Torture.