<p>First of all- is hardness a word? My brain is failing me...:)</p>
<p>Anyway, I've been to various PSAT and SAT prep courses, one through a local program, and one through Kaplan. I also take a lot of practice tests through various coursebooks and cd's I have.</p>
<p>Everytime I take practice tests, I do really poorly! I'm always in the 500-650 range to start with, and usually by the last practice I do better, but not great. Then I take the real test, and do much better than expected! </p>
<p>For example, math has always been my worst subject/section, but my sophmore year PSAT I got a 76! It makes no sense! Then, this year (junior) I was doing a practice exam and I couldn't even finish the math sections.</p>
<p>Is this some sort of psychological thing, or does anyone else feel they do better at real tests than practices?</p>
<p>If there really is a difference, it's probably due more to a psychological change (the feeling that you know the answers, perhaps) than to an ease in difficulty. That's really interesting. Maybe people sometimes have more energy during the real thing. Have you heard of how stress is sometimes a good thing? There's this type of stress called eustress and that helps give you more energy. It's like if you're about to present to a big audience and you know you're prepared--you get the jitters but they're the good type of jitters. The bad stress (distress) would give you a nervous breakdown. Maybe it's the good jitters that are giving you better scores! It's interesting because the same thing happened to me.</p>
<p>Also, my chemistry teacher says that if you smile before you start a test, it activates your brain, so you might perform better. Go figure!</p>