<p>I agree that trying to get a cutoff number for each state that equates to about 16K NMSF nationally must be difficult (anybody know how long it has been 16K?). For 2013 the NMSC had to drop the cutoff for Texas by 3 points from 2012 and wound up with 111 more NMSF, while Vermont went down 3 pts from 2012 to 2013 and lost one NMSF (the proportion issue of state graduates to national graduates still has to be taken into account). But the question is why did they have to drop the cutoff? Were the 2013 test takers poorer students and overall did that much worse than the 2012 graduates? Were the top test takers less prepared for the exam? That raw score thing that I called the curve is what I am questioning in a big way. I just don’t see how there could be that much movement nationally or statewide in any comparison from one year to the next if the raw score took into account all test differences. Maybe I need a remedial statistics class. And in a discussion like this, there is the fairness issue - how can a 216 one year in Texas equal a 216 next year but one year you make NMSF and the next year not? I won’t elaborate on this theme because I know the moderators want us to stay on point.
My DD did increase her score this year (she thought it was a more difficult test) and it is well above Colorado’s highest cutoff score, so I’m not personally invested in the exact outcome. I’ve just been trying to make sense of the cutoff movements since our first child took the test 6 years ago. </p>
<p>I don’t think it has anything to do with the test being harder or easier in general because, like someone said above, the scores are scaled. However, I do think it has to do with the way scaling is probably done. That is, the norm and standard deviation are going to be set based on the national results for each section of the test independently. While this will make the middle two thirds of scores relatively stable from year to year on each section, it cannot guarantee that the outliers (ie high scorers) will scale consistently, even on a national level. To this you add the variability of each state especially in the small sample that represents the high scorers. And then on top of all that, you have to consider that the scores are scaled for each section but the cut-off scores are based on the total of all three sections adding even more possible variability. Hence I think that no matter how sophisticated the scaling is to try to get a consistent year-to-year correlation between scores and percentiles, it will be much better in the middle ranges and much more variable the farther out you get from the mean. And you will never get it consistent for the sum as long as you are scaling each section independently.</p>
<p>@STEMFamily, well said! </p>
<p>@PAMom21, would you please go ahead and take those PSAT tests? Timed, of course. I will have a second glass of wine and watch the Olympics while you do that! 
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<p>I’ve actually been tempted to do the same thing. I did look at the number of Easy, Medium and Hard questions on the 2012 test and the 2013 test. I only looked at the Wednesday tests, though. Not much difference but according to that non-very-accurate method, the 2013 Wednesday version had a few more hard questions than the 2012 Wednesday version. Anyone know what percentage of test takers take the Wednesday and Saturday tests? </p>
<p>In case anyone else is interested, the score report is where the info is on which questions are easy, medium and hard. My 3 kids took the PSAT test as sophomores and juniors, so I have score reports for the Wednesday tests in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.</p>
<p>Ah, now that you remind me of the Wed/Sat difference Barfly, I’ll remind you that I only have the Saturday tests. You’ll have to repeat the experiments! Good idea though…I’ll take both, and see which one I can finish more quickly. If I dig, I might be able to produces tests from 2009 and 2010, in addition to 2012 and 2013. I’m a math person though, and have no interest in reading those passages my son has trouble focusing on, LOL!</p>
<p>Anyone call CB this week? I might just have to call myself come Monday, to remind them that February is running out of days.</p>
<p>“PSAT/NMSQT State Summary Reports provide data on participation and performance for juniors and sophomores who took the PSAT/NMSQT. New reports are available annually in February.”</p>
<p>Well, that wasn’t entirely productive, LOL! Still no scores! But, I’m now I’m just a wee bit stronger as an SAT math tutor. I did the math parts of both 2012 and 2013, and my brain is too fried to fairly assess the differences. Part of me wants to say the 2012 was the harder of the two, but I did them back to back and was more “warmed up” for the second. It’s really hard to say. If anything, I think they probably did a good job with consistency. </p>
<p>I can almost see though why a kid’s score might remain stagnant from year to year. I think the ones that kids struggle with aren’t necessarily any easier the second year (assuming 10th/11th grade testing), unless it’s after a really core math level like algebra 2 or geometry. There is of course terminology that might be unknown to some sophomores. However, for top students likely in precalc by junior year, they really haven’t learned more that will be particularly useful on the PSAT. </p>
<p>Test specific tutoring though should be helpful, so everyone send your kids my way, LOL! </p>
<p>My PSAT report says I scored higher than 97% of the nation and 98% in my state. Does this mean I won’t be a semifinalist?</p>
<p>I think semifinalist has to be at least 99% in state. </p>
<p>Which state are you from? The 97th percent puts your score somewhere between 203 and 207, which would be too low for most states, but there are some states that have cuts in that range. Using your state’s cuts for the past few years should give you a good feel for whether it’s possible or not.</p>
<p>Jay, check page 23 of this document: <a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a>, which lists # of juniors taking test and # of NMSF for each state. </p>
<p>Then you can see whether you have a chance to make it or not. Missouri had 13,418 sit for test and 324 NMSFs, 2.4%. Texas had 197K sit and only 1348 NMSFs, 0.68%. Those are previous year’s numbers, but they are fairly stable over a 2 yr time span.</p>
<p>And of course what PAmom says is better, to check the thread on this forum that shows all the state cut scores for the past few years and see where you fall.</p>
<p>@Jaymeg, don’t forget - those aren’t your actual percentiles! Those percentiles are based on the 2012 test-takers. That was a different test and different test-takers, and the cutoffs scores were high for every state. This year may be totally different. Years ago, the score report gave the percentiles for the year you actually took the PSAT, so it was easier to predict your chances at NMSF. But now the score report gives you your scores and the percentiles from the prior year. There is a good chance that you are actually in a higher percentile, but by the time College Board releases the 2013 percentiles, we will all already know the cutoffs.</p>
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<p>How about changes in number of graduating students? Is Texas going up in those numbers?</p>
<p>@texaspg, I don’t know. The state’s population is increasing, but I don’t know if there is an increase in graduating seniors. Our population is shifting to a higher percentage of high risk students and that may result in an increase in drop-out rate. Also, there is a lag between a change in number of graduating seniors and any change in the allocation of NMSFs per state. So even if Texas did have more graduating seniors, I think it would take a while for NMSC to re-allocate NMSFs. Looks like you are in Texas- what do you think?</p>
<p>Texas, I found this doc that I used to project Illinois’ number of NMSFs. It indicates that it is produced with support from the College Board, but I don’t know that these are the numbers that are actually used to determine each state’s number of NMSFs. By calculating the proportion of Texas grads to the US total and applying to 16,000, you can get a target for Texas NMSFs. I checked a few years and compared to actual NMSFs in Illinois, and it seems pretty accurate. What it doesn’t account for is cutoff adjustment - I understand from another thread on CC that the College Board will pick the PSAT score for each state that gets them closest in total number of NMSFs to the target for that state. So the actual number will be above or below the target based on whether they adjust the cutoff up or down.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wiche.edu/info/publications/knocking-8th/knocking-8th.pdf”>http://www.wiche.edu/info/publications/knocking-8th/knocking-8th.pdf</a></p>
<p>The data you are looking for is in the appendices - page 71 (US totals) and 119 (Texas). </p>
<p>Thank you, STEMFamily. The 3 tests being scored and scaled independently does add in more complexity. I have considered that the top test takers are more variable in their results than the middle two thirds. The 99th percentile selection score index ranged from 211 to 215 in the last 3 years. The 97th percentile selection score index ranged from 201 to 203 during that same period. The 75th percentile moved 1 pt higher. Selection score index percentiles were mostly unchanged below the 66th percentile. Above the 66th percentile uniformly required a higher selection score index from the 2011 test year to the 2012 test year (2013 graduates to 2014 graduates). Cutoff scores moved higher from 2013 to 2014, as did the sum of the average CR, M & W. Because of the change noted by Barfly as to the comparison year noted on the Understanding PSAT scores, it is really only a 2 year comparison.<br>
Previously on CC, I saw a post that gave access to earlier year (<=2010) Understanding the PSAT/NMSQT results. I can’t find that post now. Does anyone have or have access to those earlier year Understanding the PSAT/NMSQT forms?<br>
Still waiting for those state reports.
I’m convinced that there is an ‘obfuscation department’ located somewhere in College Board or NMSC.</p>
<p>@numbersfun, I have hard copies of some of those old reports, but I thought I found them online as well. Anyway, if you let me know what you want, I will try to see if I have it.</p>
<p>Barfly, that’s nuts. They report to kids their %iles based on a previous year’s results? What kind of nonsense is that? Geez, that NMSC.</p>
<p>With 8 new messages, I thought for sure the data was out! Rats…it’s not. IFFF it’s really coming in February though, this is the week. Fingers crossed! ROFL about the Obfuscation Department.</p>
<p>Speculating was much easier when they used current year norms, based on a sample of the actual population taking the test that year. SO much more useful that perfect norms that don’t apply. I curse the year they made that change.</p>
<p>@celesteroberts, it’s College Board that sends out the score reports. So, Geez, that CB. :-* </p>
<p>@Barfly - what I’m trying to see is the trend (selection index score) for the top 1/3 nationally as well as 99% and see if that affects cutoff scores. I have 96%-99+% ranges back to the '03 test and those numbers show a relationship to up and down movements in the cutoff scores, generally (did not look at every state for every year). If you have selection index numbers for the 66th percentile for however many years you have, would you post them?</p>
<p>I went back and read earlier threads and am looking at the 75-80 range scorers for each subtest for Colorado to try to see if there is the relationship you noted about big changes and/or changes in number of students in the top range for 1 or more tests. As has been noted, we won’t have the 2013 year national percentiles until after the cutoffs are posted, but hopefully, we will have the state results - very soon! If we can see a trend with the state results we will be ahead of the game. I have hard copies of 2010-2012, test date, state results for easy comparison, and 2012 shows a huge increase in top scorers in all 3 subtests in comparison to 2011. The 2011 top test takers had a much lower number of top scorers than the 2010 top scorers. So, high (test date 2010, class of 2012), low (test date 2011, class of 2013), high (test date 2012, class of 2014) for top scorers and high (215), low (212), high (215) for cutoff scores for CO. Will do more work on it when I get back from my appointment. Thank you for the insight. </p>