SAT Test Cracked by Two High School Students

Students across the country may get to breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to the dreaded SATs. It seems months of stressful, diligent studying by over-achieving know-it-alls, and last-minute, caffeine-fueled cramming by lazy, back row slackers may just be a thing of the past when it comes to this standardized test. Two Hawthorne High School students claim to have "cracked" the SAT test by uncovering a guessing method with an accuracy rate of 91%.

It all began when, H.H.S. student, Finnegan Brewer received his first round of SAT scores in the mail. He was confused, yet pleasantly surprised. As he explains, "I was confused, yet pleasantly surprised. I opened up my scores. I got a 728 [out of a possible 800] on the critical reading section. I was happy because that's a great score, but at the same time I was really confused. There's no way I scored that high. That section was really boring. I'm more of a graphic novel guy, and there weren't any pictures so I just hurried and guessed. I spent the rest of the time drawing pictures of boobs on my standard issue, two sheets of scratch paper."

When Finnegan told his best friend and fellow H.H.S mathlete, Lester Cromwell of his unexplainable high critical reading score, Lester's analytical antennas were buzzing. "When Finnegan told me the story of the guessing, and the boobs, and the really high score, my analytical antennas were buzzing. He told me he had used the chant 'Inka binka, bottle of ink. The cork fell out and you stink' to guess; whatever choice 'stink' landed on he chose. Well because we are both highly respected mathletes, we just had to look into this guessing method."

What followed was a rigorous and highly scientific study of four guessing methods, using four different childhood chants:

1. Inka binka bottle of ink. The cork fell out and you stink!

2. One spot. Two spot. Zig zag tear. Pop-die. Pennygot. Tennyum. Tear. Harum. Scare 'em, rip 'em. Tear 'em. Tay. Taw Toe.

3. One potato. Two potato. Three potato, four. Five potato. Six potato. Seven potato more.

4. Eenie. Meanie. Miny. Mo. Tell me the answer 'cause I don't know.

Finnegan and Lester paid 40 "total burnouts, with no future" $2.00 to take the SATs each using one of the chants to choose their answers. Each burnout would choose the answer the last word in the chant landed on. The results were startling.

The ten burnouts using "Inka Binka" received an average score of 1486 [out of a possible 1600]. This score is only 216 points less than the required test score for acceptance at Harvard University. The other three chants fared less well with an average score of 690, though this score is still high enough to get into most state junior colleges. Surprisingly, "Eenie. Meanie. Miny. Mo" was disastrous with an average combined score of less than 196, despite the fact that the chant promises to "tell you the answer."


"When we saw the results, we were shocked," tells Finnegan. "That's when we put on our forest green mathlete sweaters, grabbed our graphing calculators, and went to work analyzing the "Inka Binka chant."

What the boys discovered was an underlying mathematical relationship within that chant that led directly the the Golden Ratio. When the boys divided the number of syllables in the chant by the total number of choices, then multiplied that number by 2 (the type of pencil required to take the test) and then divided that number by the number of letters in the chant ((X/Y) x 2)/Z), the result was the number 1.6180339, the Golden Ratio.

Some experts believe the Golden Ratio is the fundamental essence of the universe; a number which guides all that is natural and inevitable. It is, most simply put, the key to the universe. It is because of this natural mathematical relationship between elements of the chant and the test itself that the magical Golden Ratio ensures an almost perfect selection of the correct answer.

All this Librarian can say is . . . Inka binka bottle of ink. The cork fell out and the SATs stink!

--Katherine O'Brien-Smith

UPDATE: Finnegan Brewer and Lester Cromwell will be delivering their paper "The Golden Ratio and the SATs: What they Don't want You to Know" at the annual Freshmen Publication Conference this Saturday at Harvard University, where both boys have been accepted after studying for the SATs for three hours the night before and using the "Inka Binka Method."