<p>I am a sophomore who just came back from taking my PSAT. My goal in 11th grade is to become a national merit scholar. After taking the PSAT today, however, I feel terrible. The test was actually a little tough for me. To be invited into a special course my high school offers, I have to score at least a 170. I pretty much skipped every other question because I was not 100% sure. On the last writing section I lost the track of time because I had to answer 20 questions in less than 5 minutes. In total I probably did not answer about 20-30 questions. This was the 1st time I ever took the PSAT and I can tell that I might not be successful next year. Do you guys have any advice to offer?</p>
<p>Er…170 is pretty easy.</p>
<p>^Shut the f*** up. </p>
<p>I feel terrible after that too. I better have scored at least a 200…</p>
<p>The best advice that I got was about guessing -
of course if you have absolutely no idea then omit the question. But if you can narrow it down to two or three answers then guess! You get +1 for right answers. -1/4 for wrong and 0 for omitted. If you guess on five questions and get one right, and most likely you will or you’ll get more than one right, you have a 0 which is the same as if you omitted all of them. But you may get 2 right, and 2/5 is 1.25.</p>
<p>^ I just realized that. Oh well. I guess this was my first time after all. I better do well next year when it counts.</p>
<p>I’m upset because I’m not gonna get my 80 for math 
</p>
<p>But I do think I have a decent shot at the 211 SF cutoff for Florida. I only missed one or two for CR, but writing is a crapshoot. If you go to the SAT prep forum, they have most of the answers up (Very disorganized though).</p>
<p>Lol I just saw that Utah has the easiest cutoff ever! 
Even though I bombed CR, I only need like a 202 to be a Semifinalist. I’m expecting around a 70 for Math and maybe a 75 on the Writing, so I MAY be a semifinalist.</p>
<p>^I thought Mississippi and Wyoming had the worst, along with ND/SD. Anyway, OP, don’t worry about this, a special HS course won’t get you anywhere, doing well when things count will. Get a good GPA, study hard for the real thing and you’ll do fine.</p>
<p>^You’re right. Shoot. I need a 206.</p>
<p>^Well I need 215 for my state, and I don’t see that happening now.</p>
<p>i need a 215 for texas</p>
<p>I’m not from Texas.</p>
<p>I’m not a genius by any means… Last year, as a sophomore, I didn’t study at all nor did I know any “tips or tricks”. I scored a 1760. I scored in the 99th percentile on the reading and writing portions, but earned a score in the 400s on the math section.</p>
<p>Wow. You are a genius. You scored over 7 times the maximum score. Good job!</p>
<p>^^Holy crap! I doubt that Silverturtle even scored as high as you did!</p>
<p>I just added a 0 to convert it to the SAT scale.</p>
<p>No need for sarcasm.</p>
<p>“On the last writing section I lost the track of time because I had to answer 20 questions in less than 5 minutes.”</p>
<p>This is why you did badly. It should be “On the last writing section I had to answer 20 questions in less than 5 minutes because I lost track of the time.”</p>
<p>1) If you can eliminate one answer choice, take your best guess. Odds are that you’ll guess right 25% of the time with four choices, and one correct guess cancels out the penalties (NOTE: Only the penalties, not the entire 1.25 points) for the other wrong answers.</p>
<p>2) Work as quickly as possible without “rushing.” This is difficult, but as you take practice tests you will build speed.</p>
<p>3) Review math concepts, vocabulary, and basic grammar. This is a given.</p>
<p>4) Practice.</p>
<p>If you really want to ensure a good score, follow these tips. However, I can ensure you that a lot changes in that one year. I got a 199 as a sophomore, and a 215 last year as a junior (I’m NMSF right now, may go NMF). This was without any prep or anything whatsoever. A 16 point increase without any prep is pretty decent, I might say, but my point is that just by learning in school I’m sure your scores will improve.</p>
<p>^ I think you are right when you said that I will improve as I continue to learn. I think that one of the problem’s is that my high school has a block schedule. In this type of schedule I only receive 2 core classes per semester. The last time I took English PAP was over year ago. I don’t have English 2 until next semester. The writing and vocabulary parts of the test were the one’s I had the most trouble on. Otherwise the math section was fairly easy because I’m taking Algebra 2 PAP currently.</p>
<p>if it makes you feel better, i got a 217 on the psat junior year and didn’t get national merit… last year, california’s minimum score was 217 (i think, or maybe a year before that), but this year it was 219. just awesome</p>
<p>anyway, just study. when i took the psat freshman/soph year i got about a 180. once i studied, it jumped to 217 and 2260 on the actual, so my point is practice!!</p>
<p>also, i’m annoyed that diff states have diff requirements… i’m sure in like 90% of states 217 would’ve been good enough.</p>