Most people in the United States have had the unfortunate experience of taking a standardized test. Exams like these are simply unavoidable in the current state of affairs regarding schooling, and as a general rule, very few people enjoy taking them. You wake up early, schlep to school, sit down in your uncomfortable plastic chair, and your cold, hard wooden desk, and sit there for hours on end answering questions that you really couldn’t care less about. 

No one likes having to take tests, but the majority of these trials are done during the week. You usually don’t have to wake up earlier than you do, but you tend to have a nicer breakfast as a luxury for yourself. 

But imagine a hellscape not unlike this one; you wake up at the crack of dawn on a precious Saturday morning, drive in the cold, and the wet, to an alien high school, and take a four-hour test that you, yourself, paid a triple-digit sum for. Certain “non profit” testing companies, in their infinite wisdom and benevolence, force young people (if they want to have any kind of success academically) to play their games and take their tests. 

The worst part is this: you do all of this for the prospect of a better score. You spend countless hours laboring over your test prep materials, slaving away for the hope that the questions next time will act favorably. It’s advertised that you can “Raise your scores by 100 points!” and “most people” succeed, but it’s not guaranteed. Far from it.