I scored 745 verbal, 701 math on the SAT. This was as a student at St. Mary of the Pines, in Chattawa, Mississippi, a Catholic girls school, where I was almost completely untutored in math and science. The math and science teacher died before I was even a student there, the religion teacher taught me math, and the gym teacher taught me science. The nuns did recognize something in me, they let me be the custodian for the lab, and I was allowed freedom that most children my age will never know. I have no idea what I might have achieved if I had been properly taught. I know that when I was 21, I made the highest score ever on the employment test that Exxon gives to prospective employees. I know that because they told me so. But as for the rest of it, I have no way of knowing whether the ability to score high on tests meant that I had something to contribute to the lives of others. I just don't know. I wish that it were true, that I could have saved the lives of other human beings due to some sort of ability that I never developed in any other way. But I don't know. And I never will know.
And that's that. And the honest truth is, it doesn't matter one inch, and that's that, too. |
