National Merit Cutoff Predictions Class of 2017

@PAMOM21 Where did CB advertise this?

I’m reading the newest SAT prep book at the moment, and in a subsection on the PSAT there is this quote (page 43 for those with the book).

“Although the SAT total score is report on a scale of 400 to 1600, the tests for the PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 an the PSAT 8/9 have different scoring ranges. This reflects the fact that the exams assess the same underlying knowledge and skills, but at a level appropriate to the student populations for each exam”.

So basically they are saying there is no room to show “800” level skills. (Never mind that one wrong in math before dropped you to 760 anyway, but it’s at least something to think about.)

One of several things I struggle with is that given that college Board had all the score data went they set the curves on each section (e.g. I know missing 1 on math was a 38 still not sure about other sections) - they should then know the impact on the overall curve. If they wanted to make a more normal curve, couldn’t they have if there were large numbers of kids acing a particular section? I also don’t understand why the concordance tables do not refer to SI’s and why they are so preliminary as well as somewhat contradixtory. the test was back in October & they really have the data to sort this out I would think but maybe there are other factors that were not known to them???

@ithinkuracontra
My thought is similar to yours
proportionate
last year’s TX cut off was 220. So if we applied the new SI proportionately 220/240*228, then the new cut off is 209. Testmaster’s original prediction (sliding score) has TX at 206-209.

College Board tweeted 2 hours ago that 4mm students now have access to their PSAT/NMSQT shoes - understand that some are freshman and sophomores, but it seems like junior year participation must be well over 1.5mm

How do you figure that?

@CA1543 I think they want to be ambiguous to help out the famously mysterious NMS Corp. If you exclude the NMS contest, most of this stuff doesn’t really matter- what matters is the analysis of the test so students do well on the real SAT.

FYI- 1 wrong in writing drops you from a 38 to 37, which penalizes the student 2 Selection Index points. That means the writing portion was way too easy. My son made 1 stupid mistake on writing and dropped to a 37.

Also, the newest catch phrase seems to be “the SAT Suite of Assessments”, :-&

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/about/scores/structure

This was published on College Board website on 9/03/15:

Access and Participation

Expanding access to actionable assessments and challenging course work is an important way to connect students to college and career opportunities. Significant gains were made in access to the three College Board programs.

PSAT/NMSQT: Record number of test-takers. In the fall of 2014, a record 3.8 million students took the PSAT/NMSQT, up from 3.7 million in 2013 and 3.6 million in 2010.
SAT: Growing participation. A record 1.7 million students from the class of 2015 took the SAT, compared to 1.67 million students from the graduating class of 2014 and 1.65 million in the class of 2011. A total of 25.1 percent of SAT takers in the class of 2015 took the exam using a fee waiver, compared to 23.6 percent in the class of 2014 and 21.3 percent in the class of 2011.
AP: Record number of students takes AP Exams. 2.5 million students took an AP Exam in 2015, compared to 2.3 million in 2014 and just under 2 million in 2011.

@Chembiodad Thanks for your post - so if this year over 4mm students took it, I think most of the increase is likely juniors - it was not given on a Wednesday (change in policy for 2015) and NOT on a Saturday & some schools had their juniors all take it (my son’s public school did); my other son’s private school had both juniors and sophomores take it - that has been their policy. Just a guess but seems plausible. What do others think??

Its so nice when we get new tidbits and analysis from parents (thanks @gasenioryear ) but these ‘chances’ posts for cutoffs by state are really starting to drive me nuts. I wish the mod could delete them all.

Listen folks - NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE CUTOFF IS IN YOUR STATE, so please, don’t ask. Use http://collegeadmissions.testmasters.com/update-psat-scores-cut-national-merit-2016/ predictions for your chances and keep this thread focused on figuring out what the cutoffs would be instead of asking what they are.

@CA1543, No, I think since they are pushing this test heavily down into 8th grade, the big growth probably came in kids younger than juniors. I saw the numbers for a recent year and surprisingly, even then, slightly more sophomores than juniors took the exam. In our school only sophomores and juniors take it and that has been true for a while. Freshman and younger can’t take it–they are in class.

@SuzyQ, “1 wrong in writing drops you from a 38 to 37”. Good to know, thanks. I can tell you that 1 wrong in reading is still a 38. 2 wrong in math gets 37.5, not 37. So the test was pretty easy, too easy IMO, but it could be a little worse.

I would be interested to see a chart going down a little farther of how many questions missed corresponds to what score. What matters to the kids is not what percentile they need. It’s how many questions they can afford to miss.

@suzyQ7 @mathyone 5 wrong in writing gives 33. So each writing question costs 1 point (out of 38), which is 2 points in Selection Index. :((
0-1 wrong in math 38, 2-3 wrong in math 37.5. (around 4 questions per point for math)
11 wrong in reading 32. So it must be around 2 questions per point for reading.

In our school, freshmen have been taking PSAT, sophomores PLAN (Preliminary ACT) for several years.

D3 R -2 = 37; W -2 = 36; M -4 = 37.0

She missed two in each section (R,W, M-NC, M-C). Interesting to see the relative difficulty of the different sections.

@Mamelot Yes, I’m figuring out that 4 wrong questions cost – 4 points in writing, 2 points in reading, and 1 point in math section (out of 38.) Talk about inequality!

S1 R -11=32; W -5=33; M -3=37.5

@payn4ward I believe the difficulty level was as follows: Math was hardest, closely followed by Reading and then Writing was the easiest. Even 6 missed in Math came out to 36.5. Now, I am not sure whether one’s Math SI score differed if you missed 6 EASY ones rather than 6 DIFFICULT ones. Does anyone know?

number wrong and score
reading writing math
0 38 0 38 0 38
1 38 1 37 1 38
2 37 2 36 2 37.5
3 - 3 35? 3 37.5
4 - 4 34? 4 37
5 - 5 33 5 -
6 - 6 - 6 -
7 - 7 - 7 -
8 34 8 - 8 -
9 - 9 - 9 -
10 - 10 - 10 -
11 32 11 - 11 -

@websensation I don’t think so. Certainly that wasn’t true when we scored the PSAT practice test.

if this helps i got 8 wrong in reading (34) and 4 wrong in writing (36)

7 wrong in Reading was a 35.