S-A-T. What comes to mind when you hear those three letters? The first things that come to my mind are bubble sheets, long hours, lead 2 pencils, and rows of desks.. oh, and silence, of course; who wants to be forced out of the SAT room?
The Taker by J.M. Steele is about a high-school student, Carly, who gets a low score on her SAT. She gets involved with “the taker”, who is suppose to ace SATs for other people in exchange for something. Carly, I thought, accepted the proposal without thinking about it thoroughly. She didn’t seem to think about the consequences, regardless if she was caught or not, and the guilt she’d feel after. First of all, cheating is wrong; how can you live knowing that you’ve cheated? Second, the taker is a stranger who wants a who-knows-what exchange. Third, using the taker is not a way to succeed because it’s not you who is taking the test. These reasons would be the reasons why I wouldn’t even think about using the taker if I was in Carly’s situation. Like others would say, I’d rather get a low score by taking the test myself, than getting a high score by cheating. Getting a low score can also motivate you to work harder to get a better score next time.
The story, however, has a little twist. Carly gets tutored by Ronald, another high-school student, and still takes the SAT at the end thinking that the taker would somehow get her scores up. When she finds out that her scores dramatically rose, she thinks the taker did his job. However, when she goes to meet the taker, she finds out that it was Ronald; he knew she needed help for the SAT and figured she wouldn’t be stressed if she thought it was all taken care of. He also just wanted to study with her, and figured this was the chance to make it happen. Carly gets upset and feels betrayed, but eventually forgives him and realizes that he just wanted to help her.
Many students have thought about cheating, if not have already cheated, because of pressure for good grades, but it’s not about the letter, it’s about how much you study, try, and improve.
