<p>I'm still not sure if the PSAT is easier than the SAT or not.
???</p>
<p>Personally, I feel its easier because you don't have to deal w/ writing an actual essay like on the real sat...<em>shudder</em></p>
<p>Most people I've talked to did better on the PSAT than they did on the SAT the first time but I did better on the SAT so you never really know.</p>
<p>I took the SAT one year, then took the PSAT half a year later and did 50ish points worse on PSAT. The PSAT is probably the easier test, but a significant amount a person's score on either test is randomness.</p>
<p>For me the PSAT was easier. Not because it lacks an essay (I consistently get 11 on the essay) but for some random intangible reason. Possibly it's because I was less stressed and was just able to focus better, but I'm sure there's more to it than just that.</p>
<p>I think the PSAT is easier. It's shorter and I'm pretty sure the questions are a little easier.</p>
<p>i thought PSAT was easier because i didnt have to write an essay. (i got an 8 on essay which brought my overall writing score down by a lot).</p>
<p>I was taking practice SATs and scoring 2100 roughly on each of them. Then I took a practice PSAT, and I got a 230. I got a 232 on the real PSAT. That was with no further preparation, so I think that the PSAT is definitely easier.</p>
<p>The material is definitely easier, esp. for the critical reading section. But I think there is something going on with grading to make the actual scores similiar. For example, I got fewer questions wrong with the PSAT than the SAT but my scores between them were about the same. My scores for CR:</p>
<p>PSAT: 73 (3 wrong)
SAT: 740 (5 wrong)</p>
<p>It might be because of the specific test I took, though, since my math scores were comparable.</p>
<p>PSAT M: 68 (5 wrong)
SAT M: 690 (5 wrong)</p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
<p>10th PSAT 177
11th PSAT 209
11th SAT 2120</p>
<p>i don't know if this helps but i'm pretty sure the essay boosted my grade.</p>
<p>ceecee~
I think you have less questions on the PSAT hence same amount wrong on SAT and PSAT equals to a greater score on the SAT and less score on the PSAT</p>
<p>easier because there is no essay + fewer questions</p>
<p>Most of y'all are pretty close to the truth. The PSAT is made up of old SAT questions. However, some of the high-end math and vocab is excluded. It seems a bit easier on the whole, except there is usually one really hard question per section. (You also need to realize that the PSAT is a really bad predictor of SAT scores--maybe within 200 points per section)
But the real story has very little to do with difficulty. As you are close to figuring out, it's the score grid (raw to scaled score conversion). See, it's pretty easy because of the shape of the PSAT bell curve (kind of high-peaked in the middle) to get a good score. Conversely, because the tails are thin, it's really hard to get an excellent score. Why? Because the steep curve makes it easier to have Merit Scholarship cutoffs that are in a smaller range from state to state, and it also makes it easier to make the cutoff range not include far too few or far too many students. It makes for easy fine-tuning.</p>