@mamelot, but if you read the instructions LITERALLY, they do not say anywhere that we should divide the math by 20 for selection index. What they do say is:
“The selection index is calculated by doubling the sum of the reading, writing and language, and math test scores.”
So if you were to do that, and say you have a perfect score, then your selection index (per the PSAT instructions) would be (38 + 38 + 760) * 2 = 1672.
Who’s to say that the selection index won’t be a large number like that? Does anyone have anything from NMS or CB that states that to calculate the selection index for this year’s math section of the test, you need to divide the total math score by 20? I think that is what @mathyone is saying.
Add in that the NMS could use an entirely different way to interpret the cutoffs, and the confusion just continues. Who’s to say that the ‘selection index’ that the college board describes is the same ‘selection index’ that the NMS folks will be using. There is a lot of money riding on this - at a minimum someone should reach out to CB to get the final answer on HOW that selection index will be calculated (divide by 20 for math, or no???)
The dividing by 20 thing is obvious. If the scale for reading is 38, and the scale for writing is 38, and the test is 1/3 each of reading, writing and math, then ergo the math scale must be 38 as well. How do you get from 760 to 38? You divide by 20. (Also, how to you get from 38 + 38 to 760 for Reading and Math? You multiply by 10).
Nothing. Changes. The scale is the same whether it’s 38 or 760.
@mathyone the PSAT specifically states that it IS being scored on the same scale as the SAT. Read the first page of the Score Report:
“Keep in mind, the PSAT/NMSQT® and SAT are on the same scale.
Your score shows you how you would have scored that day on the SAT®. How well you do depends on what you do next!”
I realize that you will have trouble with 760 vs. 800 but if you look at at the scoring of the two tests you see that the proportions are the same. This is why I believe you can divide your PSAT score by .95 to get an equivalent SAT score (and then look at historical percentiles to see how that stacks up).
If the test WAS leaked it was by someone who had access to it via early testing and has a good memory (or paid a proctor). That individual should NOT be protected. CC should turn the name and e-mail address over to the College Board. If for whatever reason it was a CB employee who leaked that individual should be fired and prosecuted. It’s not hard to find out who it is. What CB intends to do to find out is the burning question.
No @suzyQ7. You are confusing the definition of “test score” and “section score”. “Test Score” is on a scale of 8 - 38. The Section Score is on a scale of 160 - 760. Both represent EQUIVALENT percentiles.
You do not need to compute the Math Test Score (which would be on a scale of 38) in order to compute the Math Section Score or the PSAT Total Score. You can jump right to the Section Score - Math is just one section (for scoring purposes),
Everyone who does NOT believe the math test score will be on a scale of 38 is invited to check out the “Test Scores” page of that Score Report being discussed earlier this evening:
For Ima B. student:
Reading = 18
Writing = 20
Math = 24.
All based on a scale of 38.
Multiply the sum by 2 and you get Ima’s “Selection index” of 124. THAT is the number that will be used to determine National Merit eligibility.
Now, if CB DOES come out with something different as some of you are afraid, at least you would have a LEGITIMATE complaint that the score report clearly represents something misleading. But I think in all likelihood we can be assured that CB has, indeed, given us the information that we all need to understand how this is computed. No secrets, no conspiracy. No drama.
@Mamelot I get it… but this is the actual language from the instructions:
“Your score report will also include the NMSC Selection Index, which is calculated by doubling the sum of your Reading, Writing and Language, and Math Test scores”.
Nowhere on my practice test score sheet do I see anything labeled “Math Test Score”. The math columns are either labeled Section Score or Raw score. The Reading and Writing columns are labeled ‘Test Score’. So you have to infer that that the test score is the section score/20. SLOPPY, CB, very sloppy.
@suzyQ7, as I mentioned, you don’t need Math to have a “test score” to arrive at the “section score”. You DO need test scores for the reading/writing section because it’s TWO SUBJECTS in ONE SECTION. Rather than have each on a scale of 380 (which is totally confusing as some have section and total PSAT scores in the 380 range . . . ) it makes sense to simplify the scaling. Hence the 38 for each one and then multiply the sum by 10.
The question is not “Why not a 38 scale for math?”. The question is “Why a 38 scale for Reading/Writing?”
Now for the “Selection Index” used to determine National Merit, NMSC and CB working together have determined that Math should remain 1/3 of the total Index. But Math for PSAT scoring purposes is computed as 50% of the total. Therefore they have to break everything down into the simpler scaling. Hence a “Test Score” scale of 38 will show up on the Score Report for purposes of determining the Index.
Again, this is not unusual for the PSAT if you look back at history. I thought Math was ALWAYS 1/3 of the National Merit Qualifying Index Score but the SAT (and PSAT) once upon a time used to have just a Math and Verbal score (kind of like Math vs. Reading/Writing today) so a 50/50 contribution from each. Therefore, the PSAT Index in my day was 2 times the Verbal plus the Math. Note that even with the current SAT it’s Math and CR that counts for many colleges (forgetting the writing). College Board wants the colleges to include writing as well so they are making it an integral part of the Section Score (though obviously with the score report the student has the ability to undo those into their separate components).
I realize it looks bizarre but College Board is just tinkering with the same overall scoring system. The fact that they are mixing it up and confusing you all should cause them much glee because it means they retain ultimate control of the calculation.
Power to the People, People! Learn your scaling and distributions! Learn to Multiply!! Beat the College Board at their own game!!!
Your Math Test Score on a 38 scale WILL show up on the Score Report under the Test Scores Section. And if you multiply that # by 20 you will find that it is EQUIVALENT to your Math Section Score.
At least, it was for Ima B. Student. (Math Section Score = 480 = 24 * 20; Math Test Score = 24 = 480 / 20)
@Mamelot, I understand your point. What I am saying is that the materials released by the College Board are very poor. I don’t see how you can argue that it’s reasonable to expect everyone to just know they have to divide one of the scores by 20, when that isn’t stated anywhere. I don’t see how it’s reasonable to assume everyone would know they should divide their PSAT score by .95 to get an SAT score, when that isn’t stated anywhere.
Let’s see. The PSAT scoring chart on page 7 says that the minimum scores for language and for writing are 8. It says the minimum score for math is 160. So, multiplying the verbal scores by 10 and adding them to the math score, we get a minimum possible PSAT score of 320. Let’s divide that by .95, shall we? Ah, I see, the student who scores 320 on the PSAT is predicted to score 337 on the SAT. Nice. And it only took me 15 minutes to figure that out, based on the completely obvious conversion equation you kindly provided, going back to the PSAT charts, and checking several websites before I could verify that the minimum score on the new SAT will indeed be 400.
As you stated, back in the old days, you could get your selection index by doubling the verbal score and adding the math. I had forgotten they were doubling the verbal score that long ago but I guess they were. And you could estimate your SAT score by multiplying your PSAT score by 10. It wasn’t rocket science to figure this out because the 20-80 scale used on both the verbal and the math sections was obviously 1/10 of the 200-800 scale. I don’t think there was any scoring booklet with 9 pages of instructions, worksheets and charts. Now we have the booklet and the instructions are wrong and many people are confused. Including me–I still don’t know how to predict the SAT scores from the PSAT.
Well, looking at these numbers it appears that the way you are meant to convert a PSAT score to an SAT score is to add 80 to the PSAT score. This will hold true if the percentile charts are also shifted 80 apart, but they aren’t showing us percentile charts. I think the college board tries to center the SAT at 500, so I guess? they will center the PSAT at 420. This whole scheme seems much like vanity sizing to me–students will get higher scores on the SAT than the PSAT even if they don’t improve at all.
@mathyone I think your expectations for the College Board being more clear are laudable. The College Board has NEVER been clear. Nothing is new on that.
In the olden days the PSAT scale was NOT 800 (or 1600). It was something like 760 (again). I recall being totally confused by it. And now I’m wondering if the College Board just went through it’s archives to find new scoring methods LOL. The more things change the more they stay the same.
If you wanted to verify that the new minimum for the SAT will be 400 you only had to check the CB website.
And yes perhaps their scoring explanations are more complicated: perhaps you forgot that back in “the old days” they did NOT provide any explanations at all? Remember the first time they released answer explanations to students and it turned out they made an error on a problem and some brainiac kid caught them on it? It changed a whole bunch of scores for the first time ever. I’m pretty sure that CB is rubbing it’s forehead due to the headaches that all this access to information has caused for them. Not that this is our concern.
But do you wonder that they try to make things difficult?
And remember there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
@mathyone, Adding 80 probably makes more sense than dividing by .95. I think there are some issues at the tails that make the multiple not hold - or something like that. I just checked my D3’s scores and they are not too far apart with either.
Perhaps it’s the same issue that PrepScholar mentioned on the other thread about deducting 20 (or similar) from the old cutoff to arrive at the new “estimated” cut off.
Even with the “higher” score of the SAT - so what? The percentiles don’t change any.
It’s because this is a new testing fad. David Coleman was the architect of the Common Core and is now the president of the College Board. Some of the things we are seeing from College Board are things that are also happening on at least the Smarter Balanced side of CCSS testing. (I don’t know much about PARCC.)
The PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, and PSAT family positions the CB to make a play for selling states on their testing suite being an acceptable test of CCSS proficiency. Similarly, the ACT’s new Aspire intends to be a family of tests that can be given by states over several years. ( More tests = more $$$ )
Back to the Common Core: The Smarter Balanced (SBAC) tests have threshold scores that increase from year to year for proficiency or whatever a state chooses to call the 4 bands. The total range is from 2114-2795 in ELA and 2189-2862 in Math from grades 3-11. (Why? They didn’t want it to be comparable to any states previous scores, for one thing.) The cutoffs between Levels 1-4 increase from year to year. The plan is that a student will end up with a graph showing their scores increasing from year to year. The test is adaptive, but not that adaptive, so the maximum score possible (and minimum) also increase from year to year.
“If you wanted to verify that the new minimum for the SAT will be 400 you only had to check the CB website.” In my experience, it isn’t so easy to find information on their website but yes i did eventually go there and yes I did find it there. Eventually.
“In the olden days the PSAT scale was NOT 800 (or 1600). It was something like 760 (again)” I think not. I was able to score over 76, and I remember very clearly that the scale was 20-80.
There were no complicated scoring worksheets back then. It would have been inconceivable that people would have so much discussion about the scoring. The scoring was clear and there wasn’t anything to discuss.
I also remember that the old PSAT scoring was out of 80. I took the PSAT in … 1974 (gasp). I also remember that back then the PSAT was used not only for NMS but also for Telluride pre-selection. Is that still the case?
Anyway, the important thing is not the numerical score but the percentile ranking. Whether you call it 80, 76, 760 or 800 doesn’t matter if all these scores correspond to the same percentile. As I recall, back in 1974, there were almost no 80’s. An 80 back then, like an 800 on the SAT, was about 99.8th percentile (maybe not exactly, but a lot better than 99th).
That was before the NY truth in testing law forced them to release actual tests. Students didn’t have as clear an idea what was on the test, and they didn’t have good practice materials to work on their timing for what has always been a time-critical test. Almost nobody would have studied anyhow. And the majority of students took the test only once. Actually I was surprised when I learned that sophomores at our high school were taking the PSAT. When I was in high school, I thought that only juniors were allowed to take the test. Even though I attended a very good high school, it was unheard of for anyone to take the test twice.
