SAT subject tests. SAT reasoning test. ACT. Standardized tests engulf students’ lives, typically beginning with the PSAT in the fall of sophomore year and culminating with a frantic last-minute SAT reasoning test in the fall of senior year. The tests are offered far too infrequently during the year, and the College Board, in addition to the ACT, should support students’ busy schedules by establishing more testing dates.

According to a 2003 study at Duke University, about 50 percent of students take the SAT Reasoning Test at least twice. In order to allow time for students to retake the test without forgetting the information, more testing dates need to be offered in the beginning months of the calendar year. In the fall, the College Board offers a test date in each month beginning in October and ending in December. However, when the new year starts, the College Board only offers dates every other month—January, March, May and then in June. In a highly competitive school like Gunn, the way students prepare for the tests runs the gamut: some have private tutors, other take classes and others study through preparation books. The information they learn through these outlets is vital to how well they will perform on the test and if they plan on retaking it, it is pertinent that they retain all of the information.

Upon viewing the results of your test, and, most likely, deciding to retake it, it is important to take it again soon after you get the results, so as not to forget all the information you crammed into your brain. When the College Board spaces tests out too much, it gives students plenty of time lose the knowledge they have gained.

Though the College Board tries to work with the ACT to stagger testing dates, it is not necessary and just causes more frustration. It can be inferred, from going to an ACT testing day in February that had two classrooms for everyone taking the test, that an overwhelming majority of Gunn students do not regularly take both the SAT and ACT, so staggering test dates does not necessarily prepare them more or make the system better.

A great deal of the stressed-out-students roaming Gunn’s campus are stressed because of that SAT test. Spacing out the SAT testing dates does not ease stress for students—it adds more, because they have that much more time to be anxious and anticipate the test.

More test dates equals more fun… Well, not really—but the sooner you get them over with (and we’re talking at least twice), the sooner you get to have that well-deserved fun. The more test dates that are offered, the sooner students can get all those retakes out of the way. The College Board and ACT should recognize that the more testing dates offered, the better students will perform.