All the years I am doing this and I never stopped to wonder before:
Since there is no experimental section on the PSAT, does that mean the curve is a somewhat arbitrary “best guess” by the college board?
I think that must be the case. And if so, then the score you get on one year’s PSAT will vary a little bit just bc of natural variation in the curve.
Of course, that doesn’t really matter since the PSAT does not count for anything except National Merit. And for that, you are competing with a pool of people who all have to take the same test you did…BUT WAIT! What about the difference between the Wednesday test and the Saturday test? Won’t one of those be a little easier or harder than the other? [Not that you can predict that kind of thing, but after the fact, just in terms of basic fairness, a kid who misses NM by 2 points should not have to worry about whether kids who took the other day’s test had an easier ride.]
And as long as I am wondering about stuff: has anyone heard anything official about how the National Merit folks view the new PSAT? There is no law of the universe that permanently links the two…I wonder if any changes are afoot.