<p>Does anyone know if this year's PSAT was harder than normal? Are you hearing from your counselors that these cutoff scores will go down or up? They haven't been announced yet, I'm just curious.</p>
<p>BumP BumP PP</p>
<p>I am a parent, but all I have heard is the commended cut off, that is the national number is 202. The state numbers are all different for the semifinalist /finalist cut off. I don't think these numbers will be out until September. but i could be wrong on that. You could just go to the college board web site. They have lots of information on that. I know Calif. number hasn't changed ion the last two years at least. 216. S got a 216, so I am hoping it stays at 216 so he gets at least semif.</p>
<p>My uneducated guess is that all the numbers will go up. It tends to follow that if commended, which is set nationally, is up (and it is), that state numbers will go up also.</p>
<p>agreed. if the commended score is higher than usual, it makes sense that, as a direct result, it means that the cut-off scores for semi-finalist in each state will either remain the same or increase (in rare situations, it might go down, but don't count on it.)</p>
<p>just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>it does make logical sense that it will go up if Commended went up. BUT, for AP Stats fans who know about the Simpson's paradox (was it even a question this year?), once the data is disagregated, some states could go down. One key, is the makeup of students taking the test, and whether they are native speakers or english language learners (which tends to depress verbal); indeed, one reason why Calif's cutoff is lower than east coast states. If for some reason the english learner group has proportionatly increasaed in one state, the nmf cutoff could drop accordingly.</p>
<p>There have been countless threads about this. Search them and you will get a plethora of viewpoints.</p>
<p>Myself, I think that it will be higher.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>simpson's paradox i think was mentioned in mc... but just as a def question</p>
<p>My guess, truthfully, is that while quite a few states may go up, some of the states that increased to record highs last years by two or more points will go down. Truthfully, can North Carolina's cutoff go much higher than last year's?</p>