Our S19 has been studying all summer for the SAT and will take it for the first time in August. Will all of his prep help him for the PSAT? Or does he need to look over PSAT materials before that test? I think he may be ok, since the PSAT is a supposedly a “practice” SAT and should even be a little easier than the SAT. Now I’m starting to wonder, though, if any of the questions will be much different than an SAT.
I have always heard prepping for the SAT is prepping for the PSAT. Has he taken the one released PSAT yet?
@BingeWatcher No. He took the PSAT 10 last year as a sophomore but has never seen a PSAT.
look on college board and see if they have the released PSAT. Because I printed it up as I do all released SATs. I keep them in a folder for future use.
Did he find the PSAT 10 significantly easier? @homerdog
I am pulling for your boy! I see how much hard work he is putting into his prep!
@BingeWatcher yes PSAT 10 was easy and shorter. Our school is way into watching the progress of the kids. Freshman take PSAT 8/9 too. I’ll find the college board’s PSAT for him.
And, yes, he’s been studying about 1.5 to 2 hours most days this summer. He’s had days here and there with no prep and he’s at two back to back XC camps over the next nine days so he won’t do anymore until those are over. He’s kind of in that tough spot trying to go from initial scores around 700/720 to more like 750+. There’s not a ton of room to improve but at the very least he seems to be inching up a little and getting more confident and faster. Thanks for the support!
Yeah, at that level its a crapshoot, but one I’d error on the side of studying. I always tell the story of the kids at my daughter’s school who took the 10th grade PSAT (aced it) walked around saying “Yep, NMSF here boiii!” when students and faculty brought him back down to earth he took it his junior year and he didn’t make the cut!
You literally can only miss a handful of answers.
@hannuhylu Good story! I know his eventual score will depend on factors like how he slept and what the curve is like on that particular test. On one CB SAT practice, he got five wrong total on math and it was a 760. Another CB test, five wrong was 730. Ugh. I just figure that he’ll go in more confident if he studies. On any given test day, I think he could get anywhere from none wrong to six wrong and those scores then are a decent size swing.
He’ll take the regular SAT in Aug and, if one part goes well and the other isn’t as great, he’s got plenty of time to take it again and really focus on that section. All of the schools he applying to take Score Choice.
I just didn’t know if he will be thrown off at all by studying for the longer and harder SAT and then having to take the PSAT one month later. We will just print the PSAT I guess and take a look!
@homerdog, All kids are different and your son is scoring higher than my girls did (so far I hope), but both did much better on the ACT then the SAT. Food for thought, so for some kids they truly do better on one test than the other.
@hannuhylu he hates the ACT. Can never finish. With extra time, he gets all questions correct but he is way off on time so he wants to stick with SAT.
By the way, the are two practice tests for the PSAT and will likely be a third if the pattern continues come September.
I can’t find the second PSAT test.
Just caution kids to not “over think” the PSAT math, even though DS got a 1590 on the Oct SAT a few weeks after the PSAT, he’s on the bubble for our state’s NMSF cut off because he over thought the math on the PSAT!
@3scoutsmom That will totally happen to S19.