<p>Without going into too much detail… Im a freshman who took the psat for the first time recently. I received a score of 197/240, with a 68 in math, 67 in CR, and a 62 in writing.</p>
<p>I also took the real SAT in 7th grade as part of the Duke TIP program, and got a 1750 out of 2400.</p>
<p>So, I have some questions.</p>
<li><p>Is this a ‘good’ score, if so, just how good is it? It seems good, but there are 43 points I need to gain to be REALLY satisfied.</p></li>
<li><p>What should i do to improve that score?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you think i have a legitimate shot at getting a 235+ as a junior, or a 2350+ as a senior on the sat? Keep in mind i had absolutely no prep for this psat, other than my regular classes.</p></li>
<li><p>How much will this help me get into a good school?</p></li>
<li><p>How often does a freshman get an 80/80 on the math section? Im wondering because my friend did.</p></li>
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<p>Again sorry about the bad typing, I know it makes me look stupid, but i promise its just this keyboard.</p>
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<li><p>yes it is a really good score for a freshman. i got ~150 my freshman year, and you only really need a score of around 220 to meet national merit. plus, colleges never see your psat score, only the "National Merit Scholar (Finalist/Semi Finalist)" in your application. getting a 240 is not impossible cus one of my friends just got that score :)</p></li>
<li><p>I think the best way to prepare is to borrow or buy a psat prep book and go through the whole thing. target especially your vocab, like the one for completing the sentence. Knowing those words early will be better than cramming them your junior year when the psat really counts. the vocab will also help a lot in the passages because it's those words that sometimes throws people off. For math, use the barrons SAT math workbook. it focuses only on the math section and goes into sooo much detail, resulting in higher math scores haha. Plus its harder than whats on the real psat, so it will help a lot. I went through the book, once the over the summer and another time 1 month before the psat. i got a 80/80 on the math section. for writing, im going to recommend another barrons book (cus barrons makes the best books). get the barrons writing workbook for the new SAT. skip the writing the essay part cus thats not on the psat, but go over the grammar and everything else in the book. I used a total of 3 books, psat book, SAT math, and SAT writing (all barrons books) the 6 months before my junior year psat and got the national merit :) a big step from my abysmal 150</p></li>
<li><p>Uhh 235 is pretty hard, and like i said in #1, colleges never see your psat score, they only see that you made national merit. just google your state's cut off from the previous years' psat scores and set your goal score 5 points above to be safe.</p></li>
<li><p>Well, getting the national merit IS a pretty prestigious award, and I think it will definitely help. However, only junior year counts.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm guessing that math is one of the easier subjects to get an 80 on, cus there is always a straight forward answer, unlike CR which is subjective. But probably not a lot of frosh get 80.</p></li>
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<p>1,3.Yes it's a good score, especially for a freshman, though it's hard to predict just how much it will go up in two years. There was very little difference between my older son's sophomore and junior year scores. My younger son went up 90 points. Neither took the PSAT as freshmen. My older son didn't study for the PSAT at all, my younger son reviewed math. My oldest got a 235 the first time he took the PSAT but his highest score on the SAT was 2260 - his downfall was the writing section.</p>
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<li><p>The PSAT per se won't help you get into a good school. It's just an indication of how you may do on the SAT, and even the SAT is only one small piece of the puzzle. </p></li>
<li><p>I'd guess quite a few kids get 80s as freshmen. The math isn't really that hard.</p></li>
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<p>2.My sons both read a lot and had very high verbal scores. Frankly, I think that's the best prep for CR and PSAT writing. (For the SAT writing you have to practice writing an essay in 25 min.) Otherwise prep books and the xiggi method (one of the top threads in the SAT section of this site) work well.</p>