ain't it sad?

        It is a known fact that it is extremely difficult to get good grades in tests such as the SATs or, as we have in Brazil, “vestibular. It is undoubtable that those tests may not show exactly how intelligent or qualified you truly are, but simply how prepared you were on that one single day.

If we look at it from a bigger perspective, it feels as if all of our high school years, three years in the Brazilian educational system, were reduced to around four hours of our entire lives and those four ours will determine how our entire future will be like. 

Most people tend to focus their initial years solely on school, which means that, considering that the majority of the population starts going to school at the age of five and graduates at eighteen, most people spend around thirteen years of their lives studying for what has been reduced to around two weeks of test - if we consider the main national universities. Furthermore, some people do prep courses and even if they don’t, their lats year of high school is basically aimed to one certain scale of numbers from only one exam. That means that, throughout one whole year, the most important thing of someone’s life is to get a perfect score.

On the other hand, it is essential to take into consideration that, considering how long it takes to learn everything that is required in said exam, it would be unfair to judge somebody’s aptitude based on a whole life of studying, assuming that people may change considerably throughout so many years.

All of those facts must be considered in order to conquer a bigger achievement, which would be to effectively change our educational system that constantly reduces people and full spirits and possessors of deep thoughts and opinions into simple test-takers and a number from one to ten and a position on a list.