My S19 is not good with the literature passages and tends to make dumb mistakes in the writing/grammar section. I forgot to remind him to actually check his work since he never bothered when he did timed practice tests. You would think it would be obvious, but this kid… Hopefully he’ll remember to fill in the bubble sheet at least. (He had a friend who forgot to do that on the PSAT last year!)
@eh1234 I totally reminded S19 to fill in the bubbles. He told me that I was losing my mind. Then, when he got home, I asked him if he filled in the bubbles on the math grid-ins. I couldn’t help myself!
@homerdog It’s just SAS (the answer letters), not QAS (with questions). We also signed up for it though I wasn’t paying close attention at the time and I don’t see anything indicating that we ordered the SAS in the account. (Am I the only one who finds the website opaque? Why can’t I see what was ordered with the August test?) Apparently the SAS not very meaningful but I’m interested to see it because the scores for one section are way out of whack compared to the others and I wonder if something weird happened, like mis-bubbling.
HI all!
After years of looking arround this is my first question here…
Last year my son got 1480 on the PSAT and he is taking the last PSAT next week.
I wonder if this year the test will be much more difficult than last year?
I am very worry because he is really focus I getting into the 99th percentile in order to get good scholarships. I do. It want him to get desapointed or depress if he doesn’t get a good grade
@evergreen5 Not sure why I paid to just see a bunch of letters if they aren’t attached to questions. Why would that be helpful at all? 8-|
@homerdog Yeah, it shouldn’t be helpful. I probably can’t even tell mis-bubbling or computer error unless some are blank (my child answered all questions). I thought I ordered QAS, but the website says there is no QAS for the August test.
@homerdog That was the reason we signed up for the Oct. 7th SAT. It was one of the few admins that offered the QAS…I think it takes a long time to be sent however.
@Gufusus Welcome! My son took the two published CB PSAT practice tests and upon analyzing I personally did not see that one was less rigorous than the other. It sounds like your kiddo is focused and will do well regardless. Most kids perform better the following year because they know what to expect(format), have received a year of more instruction, and are a year more mature…
Good luck to SAT test takers, forgot that was happening.
Son19 is going to take a psat prep test this weekend, take the Psat next week and then we’ll sign him up for the SAT and ACT tests after that. I think he’'ll probably do better on ACT, just a hunch. He’s stronger in math and science then English and I guess that favors the ACT takers.
In MA, the scores needed for NMF and commended are through the roof high, so will highly doubt he will come close to accomplishing that. I just want him to get comfortable taking the tests, and maybe if he’s lucky and has a good day he can post a good score on his 1st try and take the pressure off a bit. I think he’s going to be in test taking mode through next Fall though. He’s hoping to pursue engineering, and a decent score is prerequisite to the schools he’s interested in at the moment.
I know d is hoping for NMF. Enough kids get it at her school that it feels within reach. I’ve been trying to diffuse her stress over it by saying it will be nice if she gets it but isn’t a deal breaker since many of the colleges she is looking at either don’t give money for it or give as much/more for other scores anyway.
@RightCoaster our school counselors mentioned the science portion of the ACT, but since it’s really reading comprehension, it seems like it makes the ACT more reading heavy for my d. She had more trouble in practices in handling the time management for it. Probably for kids who don’t tend to second and third guess themselves and those not on the lookout for trick questions, the ACT works very well.
Thanks for the replies! I think the homework/projects are broken down 10%/15% respectively. We are on 6wk grading periods with only semester grades recorded on transcripts. Grades are cumulative for the semester.
This is a new grading procedure for us. It’s stressful for my test-anxious dd. Also, she hasn’t been assigned any projects and we’ve already had one grading period. We’ve got a new curriculum as well … that the teachers received 3 days before school started. I think they’re struggling too.
D is at the SAT right now as well. She never really prepped for it and the little bit she did do (just some practice tests but never all at once, just a section or two at a time) she did not do well on the math at all. I signed her up for a class they offered at her school (but run by an outside test prep company) that was supposed to be about 12 classes and three practice tests. She says it was horrible and I should try to get my money back! Some of the classes were supposed to be the week of the hurricane so of course those were cancelled. When they got back to school I figured we would get an updated schedule with make up classes and possible only be able to have two practice tests because of the timing. Nope - they kept the same classes and for some reason they only kept one practice test. Instead of giving us make up SAT classes they said we were “lucky” because now they were adding 4 ACT classes and two ACT practice tests starting next week. I guess it is better than nothing but I paid for SAT prep and wasn’t going to worry about ACT yet.
Anyway, since she says the classes were terrible and she learned nothing I told her to consider today as a practice/baseline test. She started to get really nervous last night for a little while saying she was going to fail and she didn’t know anything. Then around 11 I start to hear a lot f noise - I went into her room and she had D21, S23 and her friend in there and they were listening to music and dancing around all crazy. She said she needed to get her energy out so she could go to bed! Don’t know what time they actually went to bed (friend who was driving slept over) but they were out the door on time this morning and she seemed less stressed.
Popping in from Parents of 2016 and 2020. My DS says the secret to the science section of the ACT is NOT to focus on the reading but on the charts, graphs and tables. It it more about analyzing data than anything else. YMMV but it was consistently his best section (34+) and those he tutored improved their scores as well. Thought this might ease the stress of those that struggle with the reading. Good luck to all!
Verdict from S19 - He thought today’s SAT was easier than any of the 3 practice tests he took and he wishes he hadn’t bothered studying (he barely did! Just 5 or 10 questions on Khan academy here and there over the summer) He even said he had 5 or 10 minutes left in the non-calculator math part that he had been struggling to complete.
He did find one reading passage particularly difficult (“some junk from the 1800s”) but otherwise, he seemed pretty confident that he did well. He said the math seemed heavily focused on algebra and seemed to test the same skill over and over.
@eh1234 I literally lol’ed at the “junk from the 1800’s” line because the only thing d said she didn’t do well was the passage about women’s rights and slavery. She also felt the math went well and she felt the grammar went better than expected. She said she’s really glad she took it before the PSAT because she won’t be nervous now for next week.
D said it seemed the same as always for her, which is just OK. She realized she had made a mistake on two grid in questions but by the time she noticed she didn’t have time to fix them. Had a few reading questions she wasn’t sure about - I forgot to ask about grammar. Her friend who did the essay thought it was harder than she expected so I guess I’m glad D didn’t do it this time.
Did any of your kids who didn’t do the essay have the 5th test section? I had not read about the anywhere and D’s prep class never mentioned it either. D was not too happy when she thought she was done and they told them to open the book for the next section! Luckily it was reading but she said it was a pretty tough one.
I’m not sure S19 would even notice if he had an extra section. He got out later than I expected (12:30) so maybe he did have one.
@momtogkc Yes, S had the 5th test section…it is experimental and doesn’t count. His feedback was that he was going back to double check answers on the reading section (this section is his arch nemesis) and hd to guess on the last 3 questions as he was running out of time. He said the test overall felt easier then the practice sat/psat tests. He also said he felt really good about the math. When I asked if he got tired during the test, he said nope, that he ws really focused. I’m happy he feels good about his performance. Now he’s off to report in for football. He has a game tonight 
Glad everyone’s kids sound pretty confident! I wouldn’t say D is confident, just relieved that it is over.
@eh1234 That is so funny - your S sounds similar to my D. Except she noticed because she was so happy to be done! I’m glad it was experimental, I just wish she had known about it so she wasn’t surprised. And if she knew it didn’t count she wouldn’t have stressed about it - oh well. She thought it was a tough read (about dinosaurs?) but said the questions weren’t too hard.
@momtogkc I think my S said his xtra section was math…CB is probably just testing out new math/reading problems for a future exam.