Hey y’all! Thanks for all the questions! It’s awesome to know that so many of you are willing to come to us for advice. I’m sorry if we couldn’t get to all of your questions, but we tried to do as many as possible. Hopefully this becomes a pretty common occurrence– we’re hoping to publish a column once a month, so feel free to keep sending us questions. Just a reminder that all questions are anonymous and we have no way of knowing who asked what. We hope this advice helps! Enjoy!
How hard is the SAT?
Honestly, the worst part of the SAT is just that you have to do a lot of practice tests in order to prep for it. The basic material and concepts aren’t that bad (CPS does a great job preparing you for it), but there are a ton of tricky questions and bait-y math problems that College Board puts in there that you aren’t going to notice on the first try. The best way to prep is to do practice tests, and once you get to the point that you can consistently get a score you’re happy with, take the actual test and hope that you get lucky (what the curve ends up being is entirely luck based).
Mac or PC?
Andrew’s answer: I can see the merits in both, but I’m definitely a PC person for gaming. There are just a ton more games that are accessible with Windows, and even though Nvidia GeForce Now is a thing, it’s still less laggy on Windows. That said, I do use Mac for most of my work, because I think it’s more efficient and a lot more intuitive than Windows. Honestly, anything is fine, as long as you aren’t using console to play video games 🙂 (cough cough Jaden).
Jaden’s answer: Mac is a lot easier to use but PC is probably better for gaming. And PS4 is the superior gaming platform! (COUGH COUGH, Andrew)
What is your favorite anime?
Pokemon.
What is a good way to meet more people from different grades?
I think Common Classroom and club meetings are great since you are already in a room with people from various grades that have shared interests, which makes it easy to start a conversation with them. Also, participating in different activities around school, like Orchestra, Partners, or sports teams, can be really helpful in talking to upper and underclassmen.
Does my dog love me or does he just want my food? Is love even real?
Idk, don’t feed him for a day and see what happens. Look at this picture and tell me love isn’t real.
What is your favorite 3 word sentence?
I don’t know.
What is the meaning of life?
Idk, just ask Alexa.
Tips for socializing with older kids for freshmen?
Honestly, I know it can be intimidating to be a new freshman at a new school with a bunch of older students who have known one another for a while, but most upperclassmen (at least that I know of) are 100% willing to have conversations and socialize with you. It’s all about putting yourself out there and initiating those conversations, and CPS does have a lot of programs that can help you start those conversations through shared interests (see question 4).
How do you deal with a friend who likes you more than a friend, but you just want to be friends?
Direct and clear communication is the best way to resolve this situation. Of course, this depends a lot on your friendship and the type of person your friend is, but communication usually prevents any confusion from happening or feelings from getting hurt. It’s probably going to be awkward for a bit, but if this is a friendship both of you really care about, you’ll be able to get over that hurdle.
What is the best way to irritate someone?
Ask someone from the Junior grade… We’re experts.
There’s too much food, how do I avoid eating it all?
Just give it to me (Andrew). I gotchu.
What do you do if you like someone and it probably won’t work out?
I think it really depends on the situation, the person, and how close you are to that person. If you think the feelings are making your friendship with that person difficult, maybe take a step back to get over them. If this is a “I think this person is really attractive but I don’t interact with them” situation, either a) try to start some conversations with that person to see if it’s really a viable option, or b) try not to think about them for a while and hope that the feelings go away.
So that’s our first advice column! Make sure to send more questions when we email out the next questionnaire and you might just see it up here. In the future, we’re planning to change the advice column format up every few times by featuring some new perspectives to help us out. Thanks for reading!