A* British student attempts American SAT exams and is shocked by results

A smart young woman has attempted to sit an university entrance exam to see how it compares to UK A Levels - and she was shocked by her results.

We are all bound to have watched a TV show or film where a US students talks about taking their SAT exams - often cramming in study session, worrying about the results, and often characters compare their scores with one another.

Erin Meryl, who is a superfan of 00's show on , noticed that character Rory Gilmore - known for being a super smart teenager who wants to go to Harvard University - often frets about the examinations and she wanted to see if she could beat her score.

Erin, who studies economics at Cambridge University, shared her findings on her page recently. The reading lover and A* student, who has raked in over four million likes for her study tips, said: "Why do Americans get so worked up about the SAT? It is not that hard."

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Erin added: "You cannot watch an American television show without them going on and on about how hard the SAT - it's kind of done as a university entrance exam it seems. And so, I thought I have nothing better to do this Friday morning, so let me attempt an SAT practice test to how hard it really is."

According to, a SAT is an entrance exam used by most colleges and universities to make admission decisions. It is a multiple-choice based quiz on a computer and administered by the US College Board.

"The purpose of the SAT is to measure a high school student's readiness for college, and provide colleges with one common data point that can be used to compare all applicants," The Princeton Review states.

Erin continued: "I kind of get annoyed when they get so worked up about it, saying 'oh my god it's the hardest thing ever', when whenever I look at it it just looks like the 11 plus exams."

After looking through a practice examination paper Erin discovered that there are two modules of reading and two modules of mathematics. She read the questions on a tablet and wrote her answers in a notebook.

Midway through the test she said: "So I am a couple of questions into the reading section and it is literally like 'which word fills the gap to complete the sentence?'." Erin said she found that a lot of the questions are simple comprehension. She was baffled after finding the first question on the maths section asked students what 10% of 470 is.

"It gets harder but this first module is literally just GCSE level maths," Erin insisted. She also pointed out that the exam allows you to use a calculator. She added: "You don't get the hardness that you would get even in A Level maths."

However she added that she did not answer the questions under a time limit and pointed out this could make it harder in a real examination setting. "But they're not objectively hard questions," she added.

Revealing her scores, Erin got 30 out of 33 for one English section, 31 out of 33 on the second. In maths she got 25 out of 27 on the first section and 26 out of 27 on the second. She worked out she landed a total score of 1470-1520 on the SAT.

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A number of American people explained what the scores mean, and which university you could get into. One individual commented and said: "That score could get you into Harvard." Another added: "The scores you got put you in the top 97%-99%."

A third said: "I looked up if 1470 was a good score and it said you scored higher than 97% of people and it said 1520 was enough to safely get into Harvard or Yale."

An American man explained: "The SAT isn’t meant to be difficult in terms of content, it’s designed to assess your problem solving ability in a timed setting, not necessarily if you know the content."

But one other pointed out: "Doing the test untimed defeats the whole purpose lol, the time crunch is most of what makes it hard." Another agreed: "The whole point of the SAT is the limited time. If you remove the timing your score means nothing."

One other explained: "American here, I've never heard anybody that said it's hard. It's not designed to be hard. A 1500 is pretty good, though. Not quite Ivy League level but close."

A Brit said: "The fact the maths is multiple choice but in the UK you can’t get full marks on a maths question if you get the answer right but the working out is wrong."

Do you have a story? Get in touch at Lucy.Marshall@reachplc.com.

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