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MOUNTAIN VIEW HIGH SCHOOL ORACLE
humor |
BREAKING NEWS Sixth graders slated to take the
practice SAT next school year
SIXTH GRADERS: use step stools in order to reach the exam table while taking the practice PSAT in October.
Marcella Sakols
marcellas@mvhsoracle.com Schools in Mountain View and Los Altos have decided to add sixth graders to PSAT testing next year after the success of adding the freshmen to this year’s PSAT. The students will be given SAT tutoring 5 hours a week until taking it in their sophomore or junior year. Many parents have expressed their
support for this new initiative. “I bought my daughter Supera an SAT prep book when she was in kindergarten! We want her to get a head start! She’s been getting steady 1590s on her practice tests!” said Overa Chiever, sixth grader Supera Chiever’s mother. “If students don’t get a head start, there’s no way they will get into a school with a 1% acceptance rate,” Chiever said.
Hona Roll, a mother at Huff Elementary, enrolled her 4th grader in an SAT boot camp that is now offered as an extracurricular at most Bay Area schools. In addition to academic preparation, the boot camp also focuses on physical fitness to build both brain and body muscles in order to keep participants fit and smart at the same time. This new phenomenon of prepubescent students taking
the PSAT has caught STEMford University’s attention. They have started running tests on the child geniuses who are now overpopulating the Bay Area. It’s been proven that sixth graders who have taken the PSAT and have received higher than a 1500 on their score have a brain 50 percent larger than that of the average fully grown senior. This discovery has led the College Board to consider mandating the 6th grade across the nation to take the PSAT. “I want to get an 1800 on my PSAT so I can get into Harvard!” 4th grader Cor Nell said. He believes that winning a Nobel prize at age seven isn’t enough to get into his dream school. Unlike many of the other very positive reactions to the PSAT being taken by 6th graders, one mother expressed her concern. “I believe that starting standardized testing early will only add stress to the middle schooler’s lives, and they should be able to live out their childhood.” Rhea Listic said. School administration dismissed this complaint, stating that having a childhood is archaic and overrated. Furthermore, starting college preparation as late as high school will
result in an unsuccessful future. Some parents said that they saw Listic’s suggestions as an attack on their parenting style. The hashtag “#nomorechildhood” has been trending, proving that having fun is unnecessary in a child’s development and really should be replaced with intensive tutoring. Administration has also added College and Career centers at every middle school, and college advisors are scheduled to meet with first graders to talk about their futures and what they might be interested in majoring in. It is encouraged for students to know the major they want to go into by the fourth grade so they will have plenty of time to take the appropriate classes. Now that the college preparatory initiatives are starting earlier, public and private schools are adapting by increasing difficulty and adding AP and college level courses to middle and elementary schools. By 2030 most prestigious colleges will only accept students with GPAs of 5.0 and IQ levels of 155, hoping tp motivate students to grow out of the archaic definiton of a childhood and start preparing early for college applications.
Students win the Political Debate Club reaching across the aisle coveted Tutorial Cup Valeria Gonzalez valeriag@mvhsoracle.com
The new political discourse club will host its first meeting on Oct. 31, in which they hope to bring together students in a new form of discussion. The club’s mission is to reach out to students with different political views and host more productive conversations regarding politics on campus. “Often times discussions in classes just seem so one-sided,” President Imnaht Lisning said. Lisning said he hopes the conversations in the classroom will reflect the real world in order to produce productive members of society. The club is aimed to mimic the type of conversations that happen in Congress, according to Lisning. Students who attend the meeting will all receive a pair of noisecanceling headphones, allowing them to only hear their thoughts. With the assumption that other students can hear them, they will scream their opinions across the room at the opposing side. According to Lisning, the first topic of discussion will be climate change. Students are politicizing this issue heavily, even arguing that it is a hoax created by the science department to keep students enrolled in more AP classes. Other teachers have applauded
the active listening demonstrated in the club’s action plan. “Political discourse is something that oftentimes is left out of the classrooms as students shy away from discomfort,” club member Dissag Reement, said. “We are confronting issues head-on. We want to create an unsafe space— how else will change be made?” The purpose of each discussion is that the conversation has a clear winner. Points can be gained or lost depending on how students abide by the club rules. The way in which students will win points is by either making personal insults unrelated to the discussion, threats, and information from reliable sources such as @Raised_Right_ and @thatsnotrightpolitics. On the contrary, students will lose points
if they concede in their argument, use accurate facts and figures, or demonstrate an ounce of empathy. Students are encouraged to bring props to the meetings in order to mirror members of Congress. Some props include reading glasses, canes, tombstones, and Warheads to give them a sour mouth. To bring more students into the conversation, the club will provide tasty snacks to encourage attendance. Such snacks will include Tim Candykaines, Frosted Jeff Flakes, old soggy Lindsay Graham crackers, and Bernie SPAMders. The club expects high attendance as students are very eager to share their opinions and listen to opinions that sound just like their own.
Emma Cahill STUDENTS: debate political topics and prove their own party’s point of view.
Valeria Gonzalez valeriag@mvhsoracle.com
On Tuesday the 23rd, school administration faced the students in a challenging match to declare the Tutorial Champion. Points were allotted to students for each successful escape from tutorial, while administration receive points for each student caught. While it was a tough battle, it is no surprise that the students won for the third time this year. Our expert analysis suggests that the administration must play smarter than they have in the past if they hope to win in the future. While administration has made it clear that they no longer want to face students in such a game, the students demonstrated that they were here to win. Administration tried to argue that the students were cheating, claiming that students were not allowed to use their phones to communicate. However, they were outnumbered by the size of the student team and simply unable to defend themselves in the most crucial moments of the match. The student players were stealthy as they slid by administration, hiding behind bushes, cars, and trash cans as they ran towards the back parking lot. Their impulsive decision making allowed for a well-timed attack against the administration.
Hal, the star player for administration’s team, has a unique skill of thinking three steps ahead of the student players. Before the students were able to reach the BPL, Hal was already waiting to attack from the bushes off of Truman Ave. The students successfully avoided the golf cart as it raced towards them, skirting through the side streets and hiding in backyards. Hal came in with a quick recovery, following the students up Bower Street, but simply lacked the momentum he needed to catch up. The final score of the game resulted in a tremendous win for students, scoring a total of 50 points, while administration only received two points total. It seems to be time that administration accepts defeat. While the administration played more strategically, they failed to act as quickly as the students. A few students were crushed by the end of the match, having to confront the referees in the office, yet more students left unharmed. Following the winning game, the students made no attempt to be humble after their win, making a point to walk around with their trophy—a Starbucks coffee. And like time and time again, there was simply nothing administration could do to prevent such a humiliating defeat. The students continue to be the champ for yet another nail bitting tutorial period.