I’ve looked at the criteria to become a national merit scholarship. My scores for writing and math are nearly perfect. However, my reading score holds me back. In order to become a national merit scholar, I have to do good on all sections (the reading aspect accounts for 1/3 of my score). My two main problems are that I’m too slow of a reader and the questions are just difficult for me. Any ideas for how to improve this without having to spend much. I’m taking the PSAT NMSQT in October. Thanks in advance!
Well, you have a lot of time. You’re a sophomore now, right? The only time you can take it is in October and it only counts in your junior year.
I would suggest more practice, because it will get easier over time. Try to skim the passages; you’ll eventually find a balance between reading the whole thing and wasting time vs. skimming too fast and missing things. Some people read the questions first, although that doesn’t work well for me.
On the PSAT, there’s a lot of reading questions that come in pairs – one is an analytical question and the next asks for a quote that supports the previous answer. You can use those to your advantage by eliminating quotes that aren’t related or don’t actually support the answer, and then working backwords from the quote to the previous question’s answer. In my experience, there’s also a lot of questions where you can narrow it down to two similar answers fairly easily, but the correct answer comes down to the specific wording of the question (ie, it’ll be almost right but one word at the end doesn’t quite fit the text). Try to spot the tricks; for instance, some answer choices seem right because they’re easy to recall from the passage, but another choice that was more hidden in the text is actually right. Always refer back to the passage!
I never used it, but some people have had great results with Khan Academy, which is free. Some practice tests also list question types next to each answer, so try to see if there’s one category of question that you always get wrong.
Best of luck! A lot of people overlook the PSAT, but if you’re close to the cutoff in your state, it can really be worth it to study even a little bit if you think you might go to a college that offers NMF scholarships. I was a NMF this year and I got a full-ride scholarship to the college I’ll be attending, so I literally made thousands of dollars for every hour I spent taking the test.
Okay, thanks!
OP - Do you know what the cutoff was in your state last year? Of course it could change this year, but it should give you a pretty good idea of how high you need to score.
For last year, my state’s cut off was 220 so I have to raise my reading score a little.
Yeah, 220 doesn’t leave a lot of room for error, though it could be worse (it was 223 in a bunch of states last year). NMF can be worth a lot of money depending on the school you end up at, so it’s probably worth your while working on raising the reading score. Good luck!
Thank you!!! And I appreciate all the info.