ACT, SAT, ISATs, PARCCS, there are so many standardized tests now I'm surprised they can still come up with names for them. These last two weeks all the juniors i know have been stressed and sleep-deprived over the ACTs. Today I realized how scared I am to take them. When one of my friends asked me why my other friend chimed in "Because it's like your whole feature depends on one test. That's scary." That's when i realized how ridiculous it is; that where I go to college, which pretty much determines what I'll end up doing with my life rests on the score I'll get on one test. It's also kinda sad, that all these kids have been prepping for this one test, for months, some of them almost a year. I know kids who are sophomores that have been taking ACT prep classes since the beginning of January and they won't even take the test for another year. My mom, who's a teacher said that when it was time to take the ACT when she was in high school it was not nearly as big a deal as it is now. I attributed it to the fact that now, there is so much pressure to go to college and society makes it seems that that's the only way to do well in life. I understand how important the ACT is, but realizing how much of an impact it'll have on the rest of my life...that's the scary part.