I grew up in Bangladesh. I had a 12kbps internet connection and access to used bookstores a 1.5hr rickshaw ride away from where I lived. My parents can barely

I grew up in Bangladesh. I had a 12kbps internet connection and access to used bookstores a 1.5hr rickshaw ride away from where I lived. My parents can barely speak English and my dad was a cab (now Uber) driver in New York City. I had no tutors. I didn't know anyone else prepping for the test. I studied alone, with test prep books I bought at $2 a pop and a $40 course from the college board I subscribed to only for the answer explanations to the questions in my pirated book. My test prep strategy came from googling "how to study for the SAT" and reading the multiple hundred page thread on CollegeConfidential about the "Xiggi method" I scored a 2120 on my first SAT and a 2360 on my second. People from disadvantaged communities suffer many challenges and there is real inequality. But standardized testing is too often bashed at the expense of the real systemic problems - that education outcomes are a holistic problem that require us to have better schools, better home environments, better food safety, better primary education, better internet access. The government should actively play a role in providing many of those things. But test prep is not even close to being the problem.