<p>For those of you whose kids took PSAT SOPHOMORE</p>
<p>How much of an increase can I expect in PSAT JUNIOR year?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Can't help with the specific question asked but...D went up 24(0) points from 9th to 11th. Hope that's some help.</p>
<p>From 10th to 11th, daughter's score went up 25 points.</p>
<p>Somewhere on their website there is a PDF that shows what kind of increases are expected. Obviously the higher you start the lower your chance to increase. My daughter went up 10 points without special preparation between soph and Junior year. Again without prep she went up only a little on the spring junior year SAT, about 3 points if you divide the SAT by 10. She prepped in the fall for the senior SAT by doing practice tests on her own. This brought her up 10 more points (or 100 on the SAT). The biggest difference was in math. The practice helps you avoid silly errors.</p>
<p>D's math score was always good, and went up only 8 points to a 76. D attributes her other 16 points in gains to natural increases in vocabulary.</p>
<p>Here's the link from the College Board. Frankly, doesn't look like too much change. </p>
<p>Son went down 3 points from Sophomore to Junior year without explanation, except (in retrospect) the second test "was harder." Go figure.</p>
<p>My older S's score increased 36 points, from 92nd percentile to 99th. Most of that I attribute to his total lack of preparation or experience on this type of test when he took it in 10th grade, along with the boost from his 10th grade math class.</p>
<p>Verbal increased 6 points, Math increased 13 and Writing increased 17 points to a perfect 80. I'm convinced that the increase in Writing came about because of the experience of having taken the test before.</p>
<p>His HS has stopped offering the PSAT to sophomores (they offer the PLAN instead) so my younger sophomore son didn't get the experience of taking it for practice. He took the May SAT I instead, which I hope will work just as well for providing experience with College Board-type test questions. I bought him some prep books but it's like pulling teeth to get him to open them up and study.</p>
<p>About 50th percentile to 99th. Sorry, don't remember the actual scores.</p>
<p>S went up at least 20(0) points, since he took it as a soph without studying and as a junior after studying; he went from not-so-great to NM Scholar. However, you can't "expect" any increase. You have to study.</p>
<p>I think it has been shown that just familiarity with the test will cause the score to go up. Add in the additional year of school, and there should be an increase. How much is uncertain. Practice & studying can only help.</p>
<p>My son's score went up 23 points after taking four weeks of summer prep. Mainly, he took it for the writing because he had not had much writing built into his English curriculum since 8th grade. The bulk of the increase was in fact due to his improvement on the writing section.</p>
<p>My D's score increased 26 points from a 187 to a 213 (99th percentile). No prep. She took the ACT in April and got a 29 (she's disappointed, I thought it was good), but said she thought the SAT was easier, so it will be interesting to see what she made on that (taken May ... scores not available yet).</p>