A new official PSAT Practice Test (#2) has been included by College Board in the 2016 PSAT Preparation Guide.
Just a heads-up for everyone looking for some additional official prep material.
I have not had time to look it over carefully, but I did notice right away that there were several questions that could easily be hacked with CAS so I posted them in the CAS Hacks thread.
Is this available online?
I haven’t found it online. A paper copy is included in the paper 2016 PSAT Preparation Guide distributed in school by college counselors.
Just to show that Khan Academy isn’t always the first to get official materials…
@Plotinus what is CAS?
CAS= Computer Algebra System
A CAS calculator is a calculator that does algebra. It is allowed on the calculator portion of the SAT. I talked about who might benefit and gave some examples of how to use it on the other thread.
Thanks @Plotinus I just forwarded that thread to DS. He got a new calculator this year, TI-89, and he was surprised that he’d be allowed to use it on PSAT/SAT.
@3scoutsmom
The TI-89 was my first CAS calculator. It is a great calculator, but I replaced it a few years back with a TI-Nspire CX CAS, which has similar functionalities but a better screen, a complete alphabetic keyboard, and a more user-friendly operating system. It is much easier to use for students who are not great in math. Is there a particular reason why he got a TI-89 instead of an Nspire?
It was required for one of his classes, either AP Physics 1/2 or AP CAL AB. The teacher wanted everyone to have the same calculator.
@3scoutsmom That makes sense. Maybe the teacher is more used to the TI 89 him- or herself. For people who can handle AP Physics/AP Calc, it shouldn’t make any difference. Your son probably won’t want to use CAS on the SAT for more than a handful of problems at most.
@Plotinus I’ll pass that along too. Thanks.
Hey, i’m just curious can u verify that the practice test #2 isn’t just a copy of the October 2015 PSAT?
@YoLolololol
Yes I have copies of both October 2015 PSAT’s and I can verify that this is a third PSAT. That’s the first thing I checked…!
@Plotinus, how many PSAT practice test have been released 3 or 2?
There are 4 official redesigned PSAT’s: 2 Practice Tests and 2 administered tests.
PSAT Practice Test 1 (available online)
PSAT Practice Test 2 (available now from college counselors in the 2016 PSAT Preparation Guide)
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 PSAT (actually administered test returned to students who sat the test on that day)
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 PSAT (actually administered test returned to students who sat the test on that day).
@Plotinus are those test the students took in 2015 available for us the public?
@dadabit
PSAT Practice Test #2 is full-length test.
Last time I checked Kahn Academy and also the College Board site, there was just PSAT Practice Test #1. I assume Practice Test #2 will be available online soon, but I don’t know when. You could contact your college counselor and ask to have it right away. I have students who went back to school on August 31 and were given the 2016 PSAT Prep Guide the same day. This means the school counselor is on the ball.
@VANURSEPRAC As far as I know, the October 2015 PSAT’s were given only to those students who sat the test. You can ask students in your school who took the test last year. Some college counselors keep copies. I agree that College Board should make these tests available to everyone.
Oh wow they really should make all 4 copies available on public. It’s not like they are going to reuse them later.
For the old format PSAT, CB released administered PSAT’s only to the students who sat the test.
This meant the previously administered PSAT’s were like SAT QAS’s without the fee.
CB seems to have released the May 2016 SAT QAS’s as Practice Test 5 (US May test) and Practice Test 6 (International May test). Maybe this means all the future SAT QAS’s will be released as SAT Practice Tests later on.
Maybe someone should contact CB about this inconsistency?
Something else I noticed is that PSAT Practice Test #2 has a reading from Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. David Coleman has a video lesson online interpreting this letter, and I believe the letter is also studied in class in many schools that follow Common Core.
This is a second clear case of intentional “pre-exposure” (after the Frederick Douglas speech on the Oct. 14 2015 PSAT), in which texts that are part of the standard curricula followed by some schools are put on the exam.
Pre-exposure gives a very large advantage to those students who have been pre-exposed. When ETS was writing the SAT, pre-exposure was anathema, and every effort was made to find passages that students were not likely to have read before, much less to have heard explained by their teachers in school.
They made a statement on some counselor facebook page that they are planning on releasing 3-4 SAT QAS’s on Khan Academy every year. So I do expect the future QAS dates (october, jan, may) ones to be released publicly.
The pre-exposure thing is simply unfair. I’d like to see an analysis comparing schools which teach US history in grades 9-10 (ours does not) with schools that don’t. I’d also like to see a comparison of common core states with those that aren’t.
Where can we get copies of the previously administered new PSATs? Is that also available only to the select few?
OK, so if I understand correctly there are 5 PSAT tests out there, of which college board has only one available online? What happened to their much touted transparency and egalitarian prep policies?