So, should get the 2015 report out next month. Has mean scores for all 40+ high schools.
In 2013, 8991 Juniors took PSAT
In 2014, 9175 Juniors took PSAT
In 2015, I would expect the number to increase because tests were given on school days.
Makes me think the 8600 scores testmasters graphed out is missing some students for some reason and the complete HISD number should be closer to 10,000. Suspicious about that…
Then again, don’t see how skipping some students/schools could bring the number down below 219.
The only way, I could see testmasters messing the data up is they did what their report said and included some testmasters students along with others. @thshadow had a good posting about this and why they probably did NOT do this because it would mess up their analysis.
@Nathanb “I think this curve is based on two distinctively different populations. How the general population looks like is anyone’s guess.”
In Texas, how can I put this in a politically correct manner: population 1 are schools with Asian/White students and population 2 are all the other schools. Please no insults. This is just how it is.
Of course, all student populations can still make SF. I’m just trying to generalize the “two distinct populations”.
@dallaspiano The 2014 Understanding PSAT report gives the mean and st dev for the SI. Or are you asking how to calculate percentiles with a given mean and st dev.? If the latter, you can google “normal distribution calculator” - lots of them online.
@NathanBN It’s in the Testmasters follow-up to their January 8th update of projected PSAT cutoff scores by state. They actually say it twice in the TX follow-up piece.
@Speedy2019 Unless it’s Katy ISD. I don’t know that the test being offered on a weekday really matters here. Our school always did the Wednesday test in the past.
@AnnMarie74, I have that document. Of course, I google but unable to locate 99.59 with CB data associate with SI 223 in 2014 PSAT. Since you mention it, I hope you have the source. Nvm, if you can not rermember it happens to me sometime. Thank you for your promptly reply
But the fact that Test Masters is changing only Texas also raises questions about how sure they are about what the data really shows. They operate in a number of places and one might expect them to have some reasonable data to inform their predictions.
Yes @Speedy2019 I agree. The number of test scores should be over 9100 for HISD. Unless, it’s a smaller school district with testmasters’ tutoring students added in.
@nathanb I’d like to quote you again. You say: “With more data, I believe the curve will smooth out. If 217 as lowest 99% stays, the cutoff will be high. However if 209 as lowest 98% stays, the lowest 99% has to move lower, and so will the cutoffs.”
That’s also a reason it’s hard to translate the Testmaster TX cutoff into precise numbers for other states. It’s not hard to imagine that the 209 as lowest 98% could even drop a bit, to bring it a little closer to the CB SI table.
I really don’t think testmasters polluted their data. They spent alot of time on this. I bet they got some information from some GCs and really don’t want people to find out which ones. They aren’t going to touch other states because they don’t have new data on those states.
@micgeaux, 215 is looking like a stretch for TX. My daughter doesn’t even think about it, so busy with school. I’ll break the news to her towards the end of this school year. She likes ACT, so looks like we may be skipping SAT.
She took ACT last weekend. Scores should be available on the 17th. She plans to study ACT more over Spring Break and then probably take ACT twice in April.
@suzyQ7 – I agree the data used by Test Masters must be strong and analyzed thoughtfully. So we should take it seriously - it is not definitive for Texas or elsewhere but as many on our thread have been saying the CB tables were inflated and the data coming out was skewing very high. It feels strange through that the scale changed so much and many cut offs will end up as high as they were or higher. And I agree that many students will miss the cut off by 1 point.
@LadyMeowMeow I fully agree with you. If one has a large enough sample which really represents the general population, and figure out the lowest 99% and 99.5% scores, one can have a reasonably good idea about the cutoffs. I don’t think we will (maybe are not supposed to) have it until Sept.
@destined4harvard Testmaster has officially predicted Texas as 219 with good degree of confidence, they also published the data of 9000 student to show why. For ALL other state , they have NO new prediction, as they do not have such large reliable data that they “somehow” got in Texas. Past relationship between state can be indicatve to some extent.