What’s the best way to prepare for the new PSAT? I took it for fun without practice in 9th grade and I got 1270 total(96th percentile), with 610 reading/math (92nd percentile), and 660 math(97th percentile). I’m confident that if I take it for practice in 10 grade my score will improve just because I have a better feel for the test. Is it a reasonable goal to try for National Merit Scholar by 11th? Any steps, methods, or tips in doing so would be appreciated.
Depends on what state you live in: some states (West Virginia) tend to have lower cutoff scores while more competitive states (California, Massachusetts) have higher scores (like, close-to-perfect). By the time you take it in 11th grade, you will have definitely learned a lot more of the material you will need to do well on the PSAT, so a 1270 now isn’t bad. If you’re doing any prep at all for the new SAT, then that’ll help tremendously on the PSAT.
A good method to prepare that I would recommend is to just practice reading long passages quickly, but accurately. A lot of my peers complained that they spent too much time reading the passages and as such rushed through the questions. I speed-read, and that definitely helped. Another thing is to brush up a lot on your grammar, because what we think is right is actually not right. Study up on your subject-verb-agreement as well as pronoun-antecedent-agreement. Good luck on this year’s PSAT!