YoHoYoHo

Liab,PSAT is on 2 testing days, wed 10/17/12 and a sat 10/20/12. Double check these...
Maybe there is more info abouits here u can take it as a soph on collage board website or ask ur GC.

jym626

Take it (especially if he wants to)! Only takes about an hour and its great practice, with no risk. My s's sschool did practice PSATs in 9th and 10th. It let you see the trajectory of their scores and whether they were likely to be in the ballpark for the NMSF/NMF scores in their junior year.

BTW the info about being nominated for the summer programs like Duke TIP, CTY etc is not correct. Those are based on taking the SAT in grade 7. PErhaps something has changed, but it was the 7th grade SAT as far as I recall, not the 10th grade PSAT.

momcinco

Hello again everyone,

Got a message Monday from GC (very brief!) telling me whom to contact at school. The teacher who is in charge of administering the test, is the opposite of GC: extremely supportive of the idea! She gave him a booklet and S is signed up and did his first practice test last night. Not so good in CR, which we expected, but it was actually even lower than I had expected

Thank goodness his score was higher in M than expected

He will do writing today or tomorrow.

So, yes, everyone was right on. It is already showing us a more objective picture of where he needs to improve -- and where he needs to not get overconfident.

Thanks again everyone for your advice, I learned a lot.

By the way, another nice outcome of this thread: S has seen me on CC for his older sister but I don't think he realized until now the level of expertise --and the very personalized advice -- which are possible to find here.

Knowing him, his college search will be a very interesting one.

Allow me to say one final thank you.

lia_b

My D's school setup Oct 20 for the ACT plan and we already paid. I was hoping there was another date in the spring. Will double check on college board

YoHoYoHo

Liab, PSAT is only offered during those 2 dates in the fall. You could try wed 10/17/12 and take some time out of school.

MiamiDAP

Good idea is to prepare for any standardized test
Bad ides is to take without any prep.
Timing is of secondary consideration.
Keep in mind that math section is primarily middle school material, so re-fresh is a key. Many advanced students simply do not remember it any more and then they are surprized by lower than anticipated score in section that they could have excelled.

lia_b

Unfortunately, Oct 17 is too soon and I would have to find a school that is offering it that day. Most are doing it on Oct 20.

As MiamiDap points out some prep is important. I don't think there will be enough time for that and I would want her to get a good score. I will have to go along with having her take it next October when she is in 11th grade. My younger D took it in 10th grade but she was in another school and for some reason, I thought it was in the spring but I guess that was probably SATs or subject tests. If I had not seen this thread, I would not have realized it.

xiggi

Don't get discouraged by the lower than expected score. The PSAT can be more brutal than the regular SAT in this regard, and kids have a lot less experience with the format of the questions. It so happens that many do overthink and end up guessing.

Here's something that could be helpful, especially when considering the short time. Since there is no time to really practice, go through any old official test you might still have (the old red and blue books are optimal for this) and have your child READ through the tests with the ... answer sheet available. The focus should be to find out why some answers are visibly wrong and why there is ONLY one answer that works. After a while, the student will pick up patterns and avoid the easy mistakes (usually thinking too hard and looking outside the four corners of the text.) Remember that the correct answer usually comes from a direct and precise source in the text. Answers that add concepts or are too vague are typically wrong, and fortunately quite easy to spot.

The long and the short of the above is that one gets much better by reviewing the tests critically. The shorter version is to read with the answers to get comfortable with the format and pick a few words of vocabulary along the way.

You might consider doing this in tandem with your child. It is not boring!

momcinco

Thank you for the pointers, xiggi.

Strategies and familiarity with the format...practice, practice, practice.

Since S's godfather is his former English teacher who does SAT private prep on the side, we have called on him for help in the CR. For Math it's basically what youa re pointing out, sitting down with some of the real material and just going at it.

Thanks as always!