Jennings, Jefferson Davis Parish, Southwest Louisiana. Anna and Daisy, two sophomores at Venomous Agendas High, quarrel between each other during summer.
"But what about we take a diagnostic SAT? Just without Gaston, he can take his diagnostic SAT or ACT whenever he wants" Anna suggests to Daisy.
Anna and Daisy kept going in circles about Anna's breakup with Gaston (a Congressional player for the Venomous Agendas, and also doing theater, like Daisy) before Daisy could respond to her offer of taking a diagnostic SAT in mid-June 2026, so that she could be prepared to take it in August.
I did debate, I did theater, I am the booster club's resident graphist, the SAT is the final piece in the puzzle for me, Daisy muses, while opening the webpage for the diagnostic SAT right in front of Anna, hoping that Anna could be convinced to sit for the August date paid by the booster club by virtue of her membership on the quiz bowl team. However, convincing Anna to take a diagnostic SAT with Daisy proved easy.
"Do you want to take a diagnostic SAT with me, please?" Daisy pleads with Anna.
"I'll take it with you, I just need time to calm down" Anna replies to Daisy.
The two spend 3 hours and 15 minutes taking a computer-adaptive official practice test, with a break, so they would have a good idea of where they stand. They'd then have a better idea of what to focus on. When their practice results come out:
"How much did you get?" Daisy asks Anna.
"Seven hundred thirty each on verbal and math" Anna answers her.
"Eight hundred verbal, seven hundred math for me" Daisy answers her classmate.
"Don't be fooled into thinking you can achieve similar results on the real test vs the practice test just because the items are similar to what's on the real test!" Anna warns Daisy.
The debate team holds one last meeting Saturday evening, where their roadmap is being laid out for the next debate season, with their coach but without their OO player:
"While we might have been successful in our pursuit of debate success, we must not neglect our life beyond high school. Make no mistake: for some of you, college applications are around the corner. Everyone, make sure that you will take advantage of your free administration of either the SAT or ACT unless you're satisfied with your ACT score if you're a rising senior" the coach warns the players.
"Speaking of that, I think we are due to take our SAT diagnostic tests" Rebecca replies.
"Speaking of which, I took one on Wednesday night, I got a fifteen-hundred" Daisy adds. "Eight hundred verbal, seven hundred math"
What Daisy refers to as the verbal score is actually called evidence-based reading and writing. But people mostly call that verbal as a shorthand. I am not surprised to see debaters score high on verbal, in fact, I pretty much expect it, the coach muses, while the discussion turns to the course schedules for some.
Or reading and writing for others. While Daisy feels comfortable with reading and writing SAT questions, math, on the other hand, she feels a little weak because of her not having taken pre-calculus yet.
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"A few more things you should be told about the SAT or ACT: because so many schools offer you the option of not submitting the SAT or the ACT, especially privates or out-of-state, doing poorly on it is not the end of the world. That being said, even if you know the material in and out, if you're not familiar with the test, it will hurt you" the debate coach explains to the rest of the team.
I didn't accomplish nearly as much as even Rebecca, let alone Chantal, but it's not going to be a GPA problem. What will hold me back, given what I have access to, is how I perform in the next debate season. However, he goes on to give a study plan so that, in 2 months' time, we are ready to roll on the SAT. And that what goes for the SAT, goes for the ACT as well, Daisy reflects on her roadmap for junior year, and also the implications for what to practice.
And yet, interest in the SAT appears to be very limited. Anna, Daisy, Rebecca are the only takers on the academic teams. Everyone else not a rising senior seem confident their classes would suffice. English and math classes' test items, especially Algebra II and junior-level English, contained multiple-choice questions formatted very much like the ACT or SAT ones. Once the diagnostic test results arrive, the people taking the diagnostic test are given a conversion chart between the SAT and the ACT.
Which leads Daisy to ask the booster club president about whether there's enough budget remaining to extend the offer of a free test administration paid for by the booster club to sports teams, on a first-come, first-served basis, by explaining that there is not much of a demand for additional administrations, thanks to the parish paying for one free ACT that everyone must take.
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When the study group first meets, they talk about their areas of weakness. They keep quiet about their baseline and target scores for some reason.
"I realize that nearly all questions I got wrong were about pre-calculus. So I should focus on pre-calculus questions" Daisy sighs, not knowing what to aim for, only that a 1500 is a high baseline.
"Me too" Anna realizes that she has yet to take pre-calculus.
"As for me, it's because I seem to run out of steam near the end" Rebecca yawns. "If I may, we need to focus on pre-calculus"
"I was told by the booster club that I should study with you guys for the booster club to pay for the SAT" Albert, a defensive tackle, starts talking to Daisy.
"You probably know about the other girls here, although I am not as high-profile as they are. Today, we'll start with pre-calculus" Daisy explains to him, while she starts reviewing the problems she got wrong on the diagnostic test.
Here, it appears that Rebecca had the highest math diagnosis score, Daisy for verbal, but Albert has the biggest gaps. They diligently disburse advice on SAT question answering, both multiple-choice and grid-in.
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A few days later, at the end of a work day at a summer day camp for elementary and middle schoolers, another of the monitors can't help but notice that Daisy had some middle school kids tutored in SAT verbal questions.
"Daisy, can you tell me why you asked them SAT questions in quiz form?" Paige, a rising junior, asks her.
"You have a better idea for these budding actors not to lose their knowledge of English?" Daisy asks her fellow theater actress. "Or math, too. Speaking of the SAT, you should start studying for it, or for the ACT, even though it's still several months away for you"
But then, Albert invites the study group over for another study session. It's here that they realize what makes Anna more troubled in her study of the SAT. Yet, she seemed to have the hang of pre-calculus questions as asked on the SAT, that is to say, not much that can be asked. Statistics, maybe some exponentials and logarithms.
"Why is it that I got this question wrong? There's some information missing that could change the meaning of what I could answer, had it been provided!" Anna laments over a wrong answer.
"Anna, although asking yourself what would happen in certain scenarios is helpful outside of the test, you should put aside the outside knowledge you have when answering reading questions" Daisy explains to her, while attempting the question herself.
And there's the disconnect between the test and the real world, Anna sighs, while Albert attempts the set of questions attached to the passage right next to her. However, the trio of girls realize that Albert is so different from them. And he must also learn a few Algebra II notions as appropriate for the SAT, on top of any tricks for the reading and writing portions.
However, since he has a much longer way to go, his study plan just isn't the same as the other 3 girls, and it's not about fine-tuning in his case.