Each year, more than a million students spend three grueling hours taking the SAT (officially called the SAT I), a test that colleges and universities use to help them decide which students to admit. In addition to the time spent taking the test, most students also devote many hours preparing before the test to make sure they get the best score possible, and fruitless hours after the test worrying about whether they actually got that score.

Because it plays such an important role in the college admissions process, students often look upon the test with dread. This introduction is an attempt to cut through all the fear and hyperbole (a good SAT vocabulary word, by the way) by explaining what the SAT is, how it’s scored, and why colleges use it to evaluate prospective students. We will also discuss the test’s controversial flaws, the test preparation industry that has grown up around the SAT, and, most important, how you should approach the test to minimize your anxiety and maximize your score.