<p>How common is it for kids to take the PSAT as a soph? If you or your child did this, post your school and the year you did it. It was unheard of back when I was in high school. Now my child's school strongly suggests it, another private high school requires it and a third doesn't do it. I'm trying to feel out what the trend is.</p>
<p>From CollegeBoard</a> Data, you see that almost as many sophomores as juniors take the PSAT. Taking the test as a sophomore is solely for practice; there's nothing on the line. Most kids, including myself, at my school take the PSAT as sophomores.</p>
<p>Many schools actually recommend that students take it as sophomores. I know that my school pays the test fees for sophomores, but not for juniors. I think everyone should take it as a sophomore. The math is at a lower level, so you should know all that you need as a sophomore. The other sections are a tad easier as well, so its not really like taking the SAT as a sophomore.</p>
<p>Sophomores take exactly the same PSAT as juniors.</p>
<p>My kids took it a sophomores just for the experience.</p>
<p>How does the PSAT compare to the SAT in terms of the difficulty of the material and the length of the test? Our son will be a junior this year taking the PSAT but has not taken it before. He did take the SAT once in elementary school and once during his freshman year. Are the tests sufficiently different that he should prepare for the PSAT in a particular way?</p>
<p>MilwDad - we are in a similar situation. My child took the SAT at age 12, but hasn't done them since (Now age 15). The school requires PSAT so I got a prep manual. It looks fairly similar to the SAT. I think getting the PSAT manual and spending just a short bit of time with it will be sufficient - that is what we are doing. The PSAT is shorter, and somewhat easier, and the logic for when to guess may be different.</p>
<p>Regarding Post#6,
No. The PSAT is not easier than the SAT. There is a severe curving
of the results, hence 1 wrong could mean a 4-5 point reduction. The
questions do look understandably simple but amongst them will be one
or two that will make a big difference on the cumulative score.</p>
<p>It is fairly common in public schools to take PSAT in the sophomore year.
The percentile curve is different than the one for Juniors
(used for NMSQT).</p>
<p>Similar to your suggestion I took the PSAT lightly and fared relatively
(<225) not so well.Though later when I took the SAT my scores were
more realistic. The students at school who took the PSAT seriously
had better scores on it but did not get much of a % increase on their
SAT sections subsequently.</p>
<p>Apart from staying out late the night before how does one take the test "lightly" or not such that it would make a difference to the score? The questions are the same; the answers are the same. Surely no one is purposefully answering incorrectly. If the format is the same and the qualitative difficulty of the questions is the same as on the SAT, wouldn't past experience with the SAT be ample preparation?</p>
<p>Well, the material covered in the math section of the PSAT is certainly at a lower level than the SAT. As to the curving - I don't have sufficient data to compare. It is definitely shorter, and therefore somewhat less tiring. Of course, there is also the confusing regional affect. If you are in a state that typically has a low qualifying score for NM, does that make the PSAT 'easier'?
In any case, MilwDad, I would suggest some prep, but not much. Have your child get a prep book , try the diagnostic and see what happens. Mine, after having take the SAT for JHU about three years ago, has done four of the five sections in the Kaplan book and missed exactly one question so far. (Doing the whole at one sitting is too tedious to enforce at the end of the summer.)
Looking over any of the prep books will also point up the minor differences sufficiently.</p>
<p>Thanks nemom -- good advice. I would also be loathe to ask my son to sit down and take a practice test in one sitting in these waning weeks of summer -- particularly as he has just finished all the summer assignments for the AP classes he'll be starting this fall.</p>
<p>Yup - I am trying to give mine as much down time as seems possible. And, doing it that way we figured out that prep really wasn't needed, except perhaps a tiny bit on the writing section. So, our method served our purpose just fine.</p>
<p>Our strategy for sophomore year (in our school it was optional and everyone did not do it) was to take the test with no prep (other than reading the directions and understanding what was on the test). It then served as a diagnostic for where our son(s) would need to focus their efforts for the real PSAT in their junior years. It worked well for us without stressing them too much.</p>