You’re about to turn around and strangle the kid who has been tapping your chair with his foot during the entire second section of trig that you still don’t remember.

There is the agony of those hours deliberating over answers that float in and out of your head like wisps of the lectures they were once a part of.

Wails, moans and shrieks emitting from your stomach are earning you some nasty looks from those around you.

Those are five crucial hours in your high school life during the SAT or ACT. Yes, look forward to those unspeakable Saturday morning hours. This goes on your permanent record.

Or does it?

Depending on which test you take, you can have this score shine on your transcript, or have it hidden away like the tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt.

SAT or ACT? The choice is yours.

Many students are sending in test scores from both. As long as students write the school code (411-445) on their score sheet, Wando will receive the scores. When the scores are received, they will go on to the student’s transcript. Many colleges accept scores that are directly on the transcript, guidance counselor Michelle Barini said.

Colleges are being criticized by students for putting too much weight on these standardized tests, but the blame for the stress extends beyond the admissions doors.

There is “pressure from everywhere,” senior James Shelley said. “Pressure from parents to make the grade that they deem suitable and pressure from myself to make the grade that I deem suitable.”

For students who have a low GPA, or a low class rank, the SAT offers a chance to highlight the potential in students. On the other hand, students who have a high rank and GPA, but aren’t good test takers might get slighted by this heavily weighted test, Barini said.

“It’s a high stakes test; there’s a lot that rides on that,” she said.

“My friends are pretty competitive and I feel a lot of pressure from my parents… I feel if I do bad, I’ll let them down,” junior Jessica Tyler said. Tyler hasn’t taken the SAT yet, but she is signed up for it in October.

Although the expanded version of the SAT has been in place for 18 months now, colleges are still hesitant about how to weight the new writing section. With the lack of national statistics on this portion of the test, colleges are afraid to put any emphasis on it at all, Hank Fuller of the Citadel said.

Some colleges are looking at this section for placement in English classes, as an entry essay on the college application, or as supplemental information with the critical reading score, according to Barini.

The Citadel has been looking at this ambiguously viewed section since March of 2005, when the writing portion was first added. They look at the writing score and compare it to the GPA of the student being considered. That way, when national score and statistics come out, the Citadel will have its own arsenal of data, although the section currently isn’t under consideration for admissions, Fuller said.

The SAT isn’t the only thing under consideration by schools anymore. Everyone has heard the buzz about the holistic approach to college applications and the admissions process, and most seniors run away in terror when the topic comes up. Class rank, grade point average and course load are very important considerations to most schools, but of course, they are coupled with standardized test scores.

According to Fuller, national college rankings done by places like the College Board and U.S. News and World Report base their rankings primarily on the range of SAT scores of students admitted to those colleges. Until they start looking at something else, standardized test scores will be the focus of colleges.

“Students are looking at those national statistics,” he said.

So these scores are of the utmost importance. College is not only a place of education; it is a place of business. With good scores come good students. With good students comes good money.

The pressure is on. These tests may very well be the bane of your existence. The thing is, they are “just something we have to do. Without it, it wouldn’t be high school,” Shelley said.