US students typically take the SAT a year or two before finishing high school. However, they often start preparing for the SAT years before that.
These are just simple linear equation systems; where are the roots, the powers, the trigonometry, the logarithms, the limits, the integrals?
There is multiple articles from various view points on the fact that education in the US is declining.
"American students are continuously proving to know less in subjects like history." "A 2010 study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed the U.S. history testing scores are "stagnant," with only 9 percent of fourth graders correctly identifying a photograph of Abraham Lincoln and stating two reasons for his importance."(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/public-education-10...)
"The United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, yet U.S. students remain poorly prepared to compete with global peers."(Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/03/26/7...)
"There’s a delightful and true saying, often attributed to Joseph Sobran, that in a hundred years, we’ve gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college." (Source: http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/education-2/middle-school...)
1. Trying to identify the very best high school students across a wide range of schools who deserve a shot at an elite university with an international reputation. (Lots of flaws here)
2. Providing some insight about which students at an average high school are 2nd quartile, 3rd quartile, etc. If they're all going to college so that they can learn to be police officers, nurses, desk clerks, etc. (odd social choice), then testing people on rudimentary math makes sense.
Its not. Its supposed to be a lower-level test of math ability. High-school level mathematics is tested in the Level 1 and Level 2 Mathematics SAT Subject Tests, not the Mathematics portion of the core SAT.
(Integrals are calculus, which, while often taught in high-school, is considered college-level math, which is why it is an AP subject.)