<p>Frankly, I don’t see the factor sex plays in the performance on PSATs. If you are prepared, you will do well; otherwise, you will not do well.
The general trend - and I’m making a big generalization - is that girls excel in English and boys in Science and Math. Now, there is no reason members of either sex could not work on their weaknesses. Plus, PSAT is not something outrageously hard that studying cannot conquer. If there is any “real” bias, it’s not the test’s fault, but rather a shortcoming of the students for not preparing well enough.</p>
<p>Bias can occur if, for example, the stories are generally more interesting to one sex more than another – such interest helps the reader “read between the lines” and capture the “tone”, etc of the story. I know that my son always does better on the CR practice tests if the story is of interest to him.</p>
<p>My school has 3 semifinalists, all male, i think. There is one that is right on the edge of semifinalist that may be the only girl. But there may be more I don’t know of.</p>
<p>F. And yeah, I think it’s a valid question. Don’t assume that someone is trying to prove that “girls do verbal, boys do math…” It’s just a trend to document.</p>
<p>Critical reading usually kicks my butt (as shown in all 8 practice tests from the Official SAT book) but I actually thought the passages on this PSAT were…bordering fun (for standardized testing anyways).</p>
Then again, I scored 780 on the SAT CR section so it doesn’t really mean anything.</p>