(September 19, 2012) — As his peers adjusted to the laid-back lifestyle summer had to offer, junior Arman Virabov spent five days every week at Elite, an educational institute specializing in preparing high school students for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Without any previous experience with the student-feared test, Virabov began his SAT boot camp without any idea of what to expect. According to Virabov, attending Elite was synonymous with attending Clark. “Elite is just as challenging as Clark,” said Virabov. For the majority of his summer, the junior spent much of his time completing the daily packets and workbooks and routinely memorizing 2000 vocabulary words. However, the vocabulary words weren’t Virabov’s biggest challenge. “The critical reading portion of the test was the worst,” Virabov said. “It was really hard to keep myself awake while reading.” After completing the same course, junior Christine Lee agreed with the rigorous reputation associated with Elite. “After taking Elite,” Lee said, “school’s going to be a joke.” The first-time Elite student adds that the summer boot camp makes regular school easier to manage. With assistance from SAT prep schools such as Elite, some students were able to increase their scores and increase their chances of attracting colleges. Senior Tara Abdul-Ahad, another Elite student, is hopeful that she will be able to submit her target scores to colleges this coming fall. Luckily for these students, attending Elite wasn’t a mundane task. “The teachers made learning fun,” said Abdul-Ahad. According to Abdul-Ahad, the SAT teachers spend their class time making sure the entire class understands a certain subject. According to Abdul-Ahad, the teachers (who asked to be called by their first names), created an enjoyable classroom environment in order to have students feel comfortable enough to ask questions and actively participate in class. “Some teachers would play music or games and tell jokes or stories that would still relate to the lesson,” Virabov said. Abdul-Ahad agreed that if the teachers don’t make the lessons fun, students such as herself won’t enjoy coming to Elite. Other students chose classes taught through other test prep companies. Junior Sheina Sakhrani enrolled in a class taught by an an energetic teacher at Revolution Prep in Pasadena. According to Sakhrani, her SAT teacher spent a majority of the class time expressing his exaggerated excitement. “He would always repeat the same cliche things,” Sakhrani said. Teachers became another issue in senior Grigori Grigoryan’s Kaplan’s SAT Prep class taught at Burbank High School. As time progressed, Grigoryan became aware of the lack of productivity in the teacher’s lessons. Eventually, he said, the course seemed like a waste of his time and money. “Everything the teachers did, I could have done on my own.” Grigoryan said. Unlike his peers enrolled in other courses, Grigoryan found a decline in his scores on his weekly practice tests which ultimately led to a significant decline in the actual SAT. “My score was higher before taking the course,” he said. Grigoryan spent his summer reviewing and studying by himself and has seen an increase in his practice tests, he said. Sakhrani said that she spent the entirety of her summer alternating between SAT prep course, private SAT tutoring, and science programs at UCLA and UC Berkeley. Sakhrani said that although the SAT became one of her top priorities, she wanted to focus on her post-SAT career. She feels that regardless of how much she tries, she won’t be able to reach her goal. “I feel like you’re never going to reach your ultimate goal score it’s a perfect score,” she said. “I’m not going to kill myself for that.” Although students enroll in SAT prep classes in order to sit through math, grammar, reading and writing lessons, some students believe that the SAT isn’t based on intelligence. “The SAT isn’t about knowledge,” said Virabov. “It’s mostly about knowing the tricks and shortcuts necessary to get a high score.” Similar to Virabov, Abdul-Ahad disagrees with the belief that the four-hour long test determines a student’s intelligence. “It’s a really important test,” said Abdul-Ahad, “but some intelligent students may be bad test-takers and doing poorly on the SAT would affect their chances of getting accepted to colleges.” For these students, attending class multiple times every week didn’t result in a loss of summer vacation, but instead a large gain towards their education. Abdul-Ahad, Lee, and Virabov agree that the summer-long course will ultimately aid their college application process. “Without taking Elite, preparing for the SAT would have been close to impossible,” Abdul-Ahad said.