Just a lot of practise tests (and reading a lot for the previous 10 years). I think test-taking strategies are helpful, such as “when to guess.”
Thanks, @prodesse! He has done a few practice tests, so we will do a few more before the Oct test.
S19 got a 1360 on the PSAT in tenth grade (last year). He studied for the SAT this summer and just got a 1540 on the Aug test. So, big jumps can happen if you study. We are hoping his success carries over to his 11th grade PSAT. They take it on Oct 11th.
Like many of the posters above, he took pre calc last year and is in BC Calc this year. He definitely had to review math. Forgot some of the geometry and trig but it came back pretty quickly once he looked it over.
@homerdog Thanks for the good info! S scored a 1360 on PSAT in 10th last year, too, but he made a 1470 and a 1360 on SAT. Unfortunately, our school will not allow any students to take pre cal until junior year, and he doesn’t have it until spring. 
I am assuming this is why his score in math is not as great? Normally an excellent math student. He has worked with a tutor and has studied some over the summer. Hoping to improve our PSAT score next month. Congrats on an awesome SAT score!
I don’t think there’s any pre calc on the SAT. There is a handful of trig though. There is pre calc on the Math 2 SAT 2. My best guess is that strong math students may forget the geometry. That’s where S19’s biggest hole in knowledge was.
One tip I passed along to my kids was to identify the type of math problem he or she found easiest, and do that type first (being careful to put the answers in the right place). That serves as a warm-up for the other questions, which will no longer seem so difficult.
RE: When to guess, test taking strategy.
Always, if you don’t have an answer. There isn’t a penalty for guessing.
I got a 1470 both times I took it-- at least I’m consistent.
S went from 1460/220 sophomore year (little prep) to 1490/222 junior year (lots of prep). He then mostly took a break from prep until about a week before the December 2016 SAT and scored 1560 on that, so the junior PSAT wasn’t quite predictive of his SAT score just eight weeks later with no extra prep. He took precalc sophomore year and AP calc AB junior year, although both years his teacher had them doing PSAT math packets to help them remember the concepts required for the PSAT.
My S19 had a 1360 on the 10th grade PSAT and was getting around 1450 on practice SAT’s before the Oct. 7 test but didn’t do much actual prep/study. However he thinks his actual SAT will be higher than that (he never checked his answers on the practice tests and made a lot of dumb mistakes - he said he had plenty of time to lock over his answers on Saturday and felt confident about it). He also thought the SAT he took was easier than the CB practice tests.
He got a 710 on the PSAT math last year at the beginning of Algebra 2, so I’m hoping he can get close to a perfect score on it this time around. His English/writing should improve from last year’s 650, but probably not enough to get him to a 222 for NMF. I think he’ll get a commended score.
I am the parent of a National Merit Scholar and a sophomore who took the PSAT. Several people have made comments that the National Merit doesn’t really matter, it’s the SAT that matters. Perhaps if you’re really rich or poor. If you are a six figure household income but not wealthy, you’re not getting much financial help at the elite schools. My experience was,we could pay the majority of the bill at an elite school or get full Tuition plus at any numbers of stte schools. My oldest is a sophomore at ASU in the Barrett Honors Program and Carey School of Business with National Scholars Merit awards for four years totalling just south of $130k. We didn’t get a fraction of that from private schools. Grades and 35 ACT didn’t get him his financial package, one day of testing did. I recommend every family with a high talent student take the test as a sophomore, do your study on Khan or with a tutor and get the National Merit scholarship when you can. If you can afford to pay the Elite School, great. If you can’t, you have a great backup. Sophomore had a 1420 and a 211. Has some work to do but we know what the work is and he needs to get to 217 which is doable. I’m thrilled we tested early and now, he can do the work to close the gap. Hope this is helpful
Two questions: One, how does your son like ASU? We are considering it for our current NMSF. Second, what do you and others recommend as far as studying when a student basically knows this stuff, but can be careless? Are the questions on Khan similar to the actual PSAT? My senior did well without any studying, my sophomore got a 220 (also without prep), but that isn’t good enough where we live, so he’ll need to bump it up a few points next year. He’s in Calc BC currently, and yet he missed questions on the non-calculator portion of math and I think just didn’t take the time or else read the questions too quickly. We are also in that “in-between” place money wise, and although we’re still not sure where older ds will end up, we completely agree that NM has some great benefits and would love to have that option with younger ds.
@jeh3924, the counselors and math teachers at S’s school cautioned that sometimes advanced math students struggle with the PSAT/SAT math section because they’ve moved well beyond the material covered by those exams. Calc students need to spend enough time refreshing themselves on the PSAT/SAT math concepts to ensure that they can move quickly through the math portion. So make sure your current sophomore doesn’t skimp on the math prep next year, since he will be several years past the concepts needed for his junior year PSAT. In my son’s school, all the precalc and calc teachers spend time at the beginning of the school year reviewing PSAT math concepts and giving the students multiple PSAT math packets as homework, to help dust off the cobwebs for that exam. My son is not as advanced in math as your son (he took Calc AB as a junior) and he still found the PSAT math prep packets very helpful to get him back into the mindset required for the PSAT and SAT.
^^^This my son’s PSAT math score decreased every year as he took higher and higher math classes.
Wow, @traveler98, that is awesome that your school does that. My kids’ school does no PSAT prep whatsoever. My older kids didn’t even take it before 11th grade (I have 4). The youngest is the first to take it as a sophomore. Good advice!
Also @jeh3924, since your son will not have his math teacher reminding him of this next year, make sure he knows that the PSAT and SAT are designed to require no knowledge of calculus. Sometimes where the advanced math students can get tripped up is, for instance, approaching an algebra problem with calculus tools. Those students end up overcomplicating the problem and taking too long to solve it, or introducing more opportunity for mistakes so that they end up with the wrong answer. If your son is aware of the issue and studies specifically to remind himself how to solve all the problem types without calculus he should be fine. He even has time to experiment to see if it works better for him to use a calculus approach for some types of problems.
@jeh3924 - my son is about to graduate from ASU and Barrett. He has had an outstanding experience. Based on other posts, I am in a similar position as Redbirddad. We make enough money that we don’t qualify for financial aid and don;t make enough to pay the full bill. My son received the President’s New American scholarship. Our out of pocket is over $20k per year. If you can get NMF and make ASU your first choice, they have a special scholarship designation. You get full tuition. I recommend looking into Barrett and ASU. They have a lot to offer.
@usma87 - thank you! It looks like my son will make finalist (no rejection letter yet) and we just got another invitation from ASU today to visit (looks like they will pay for his flight, or at least most of it), which we’re considering. I will say, the one negative I hear from people is, “Isn’t that a total party school?” What have you found? The other question I had was (if you know) how is ASU for non-liberal arts kids? Is it hard to find classes to fulfill your honors choices if you are a STEM (in his case, CS) major? I hope it’s okay to hijack the thread like this- since I have a sophomore who is looking at similar schools and might be a NMSF, I’m definitely interested in any and all feedback.
@jeh3924 - one thing I forgot to mention, Barrett students get priority registration. That is HUGE! As far as getting honors classes, they have several ways to fulfill them. First, there are “honors sections” of various classes. They get Honors credit for those. Then there is “honors contracts” that the student works with a professor on extra things outside of class. My son’s contracts have been either discussion groups or extra projects. BTW, my son is STEM also. If you can do the visit, I encourage it. My twins went and came back impressed. They had one-on-one meetings with Deans, professors and advisors.