<p>Just curious...what did you all think of PSAT's yesterday? My son says he did not get enough sleep (but who does at these schools, right?) and only had a fig newton bar for breakfast. He felt that the math and verbal sections were very easy, but critical reading was a bit trickier (always his nemesis). He definitely will need to make this a chief area of study for SAT's.</p>
<p>I hated the math. I found the crit reading, verbal, and writing sections were by far the easiest thing. I am apparently not a “strong math student” here at Choate, so I fail at life.</p>
<p>I didn’t like it much. I did OK on the practice test (low/mid/high 70s) but I don’t feel as if I did as well on the PSAT. I think I am going to end up taking the SSAT this November and using that, as we don’t get the PSAT back until January. </p>
<p>I prepared and all, but I didn’t get enough sleep, nor was I focused enough. CR was easy but the passages WERE SO DAMN ****ING BORING. I can read a book such as Catcher in the Rye and write a decent analysis or response to it. I can have a long conversation about Animal Farm. It’s beyond me why lobsters are of the least bit important. </p>
<p>There was a point in the middle of CR 2 in which I debated not taking it. CR is the most worthless aspect of the PSAT overall. It does not test one’s ability to critically read, it tests the person’s ability to stay focused on something that doesn’t matter. I guess that cost me. The SSATs reading section–last year–was far more interesting. The vocab “fill in the blank” was easy, as per usual. Then again, I feel as if all my answers were right, so who knows?</p>
<p>I’ll go with the SSAT, though.</p>
<p>^^sometimes your textbook reading in college might feel as boring as the psat passages, though. So I guess they need to see if you can still discern the concepts even from something that is dry and uninteresting.</p>
<p>:( Yeah, I need to work on that. Twice, I read the whole passage and realized that I had no clue what I had just read. I’m a great speed reader, but when I need to keep myself awake and interested at the same time it took quite a bit. SSAT was mildly interesting. This PSAT was literally killing me.</p>
<p>I didn’t have breakfast at all, but I think I did fine, since the whole test was only about 3 hours.</p>
<p>Critical reading WAS pretty dull… but I remember on the SAT a few years ago there was a really interesting article about kids’ addiction to comic books as a way to escape reality. But then again, maybe I just got lucky…</p>
<p>I think I probably had a TV dinner for breakfast (I have some of the most random breakfasts, rofl) and probably about 5 hours of sleep. >_> But the snack our school had was nice, haha. I’m a sucker for snacks…</p>
<p>But I felt I did pretty gooood on it. I took the PLAN last Friday and that actually seemed much more difficult. I kept running out of time on the PLAN and guessed on the last 2-4 questions in each section.</p>
<p>I messed up on one of the math problems on the PSAT and I’m still annoyed about it. Instead of doing something to get the smallest answer, I did the largest by mistake. And when I realized I did that, time was up. Hmmph.</p>
<p>Never taken the SSAT so I don’t know how to compare to that.</p>
<p>Definitely harder than the SSAT - but then again the PSAT is designed for high schoolers and the SSAT is mostly for middle schoolers. </p>
<p>But still, it was easier than I thought it’d be! The practice test was way harder. :D</p>
<p>Does anybody else realize (I’m taking it as a sophomore) that it’s a practice test for a practice test of a test? And then people practice for it?? Isn’t that kind of ridiculous? Maybe not on a super-overachiever site like this, but still.</p>
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However, for the school, the SSAT’s percentile score bears a lot more importance. For example, receiving a 90th percentile on the SSAT is truly an achievement, whereas for the PSAT it is a good benchmark, but certainly not a landmark. </p>
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That’s exactly why I didn’t care. Maybe I would have tried to read those passages had it been in eleventh grade for NMS, but this year I couldn’t care less… :)</p>