<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'm planning on taking the PSAT this October, so how should I start to prepare?
I'm going to be a Junior. I took the PSAT last october and got a 186, and I want to get at least a 210. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>First of all, it is easily doable. I started with a similar score, and I am at a 2150 for the SAT, so around the same for PSAT.</p>
<p>First: Start by killing yourself with practice. In the summer, take a practice SAT or PSAT every other day. Make sure you take them in real conditions, with the 5-minute breaks, and timed. Don’t skip any sections. You can either buy prep books or see if your library has some. Try to look around for test prep groups offering “free first tests” and things like that to get as many as possible. Don’t worry about your scores too much; they improve very slowly, but it helps a lot with math because you learn to become much more efficient and don’t make stupid but costly mistakes anymore.</p>
<p>Second: Cram some vocab in. I suggest using Barron’s CR list; it goes over the words that always show up. Never study more than 1000 words; it will take too much time, and will help your score by only 1-2 points on the PSAT.</p>
<p>Third: Learn some grammar rules. There is like 25 you need to learn, and the writing section on the SAT will become trivial. Sparknotes has some helpful stuff on this.</p>
<p>Fourth: Identify weaknesses and work on them. Find the sections you struggle with the most, and the specific questions that you are not good at. Find a workbook for that section, and do those types of questions again and again.</p>