I have my eyes set on becoming a National Merit Semifinalist/Finalist, and I’m about to enter my sophomore year.
I have my 1st PSAT this year in October. This would also be the new PSAT.
Is it worth prepping (as in self-studying) for this particular PSAT, or wait until the junior year PSAT?
I would start studying, personally. Not hard-core by any means, but get familiar with the test. I think it’ll have more value to know how well you think you can do after prep vs your actual score
Dedicated studying for sophomore year testing isn’t worth it. Just take it as a diagnostic test to see what your areas for improvement are.
My S is a raising sophomore and just finished the new Khan SAT prep and will be starting a local PSAT/SAT prep class next week he hasn’t done any officially practice tests yet because they will do them in a time proctored environment in this class. He’ll be finished with his prep for the PSAT before school starts. He also plans to take the new SAT in March. He is studying now while he has the time. I think it’s silly to take any test unprepared!
If you plan on using one of those companies that grantees to raise your test scores by x points in the future it’s to your advantage to score as high as you can on your first test. We plan to use prep.scholar as we did with our D16 the Summer between 10th and 11th grade if there is room for improvement in his scores.
It’s my thought that one should use free and local resources to prep for the PSAT in 10th grade and then once you have a real official score, do more targeted intensive prep the summer before 11th grade.
National Merit if a big deal to our family and I expect my kids to do the best that they can on ALL tests they take. Why pay money to take the test if you’re just using it as a diagnostic tool? If that’s what you want then use the free practice PSAT test that’s available on line.
take it to see where you need to improve. at my school i was required to take it freshman, sophomore, and junior year and just by looking at where i needed to improve using the score report i went up 50 points from freshman year to junior year.
The 10th grade PSAT doesn’t count towards anything, but start prepping now for the 11th grade PSAT and SAT. That way you will be ready for them all.
Colleges do start recruiting you based on your 10th grade PSAT if that is something that matters to you.
The minimum score to start getting junk email and snail mail based on checking that box on the PSAT is probably very low since pretty much all kids get it if they check the box.
My son’s baseline score on the 10th grade PSAT having only looked at the instructions and question types was useful to us, I think, as a guide for how much prep he is likely to need.