<p>This is heart-breaking! Our middle son (junior) got his PSAT score back, and he’s right on the border for semi–maybe will make it or maybe won’t, depending on this year’s cut-off.
On one of the math sections, he was on the next to last question. He had calculated his answer, and just began filling in bubble “D” when time was called. He didn’t finish pencilling in the bubble, and later showed his partially marked bubble to a test administrator, and asked if he could finish coloring it in. He was told no, so he just left it as it was, and hoped the grading machine would pick it up as answered.
Well, it came back as omitted, and the correct answer was indeed “D.” Had our son just taken a fraction of a second after time was called, to complete the bubble, his score would be safe for semi-finalist.
Is it possible to have someone take a look at his score sheet manually, and possibly give him credit for that question? I admire his extreme honesty in trying to do right (he’d never had an incomplete section before, so wasn’t sure how literally to put his pencil down immediately). But doggone I wish he’d finished that bubble!</p>
<p>lol…I would’ve finished bubbling it in…</p>
<p>Not to offend you, but are you sure that your son is not simply making up an excuse? It takes 2-3 seconds at most to bubble in one tiny space–amount of time that proctors won’t even notice. So… why would he have asked him if he could finish up bubbling it? In fact, if he had it partially bubbled, then it takes like… less than one second to finish it up. It just doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>Nice guys finish last.</p>
<p>Ya, seriously. He should have taken a nanosecond to fill it in.</p>
<p>I know, in retrospect, it does seem like he should have just finished filling it in. The day he took the test he told me about this, so I don’t think he’s making it up. He remembered the exact test question number and answer letter. I asked him why he didn’t just go ahead and finish filling it in, and he said he didn’t know if that was ethical. (gotta be proud of that line of thinking). </p>
<p>So, does “Put your pencils down” not literally mean put them down immediately? Would the “official policy” say that he could have finished filling it in? And if so, I wonder why the administrator (seeing the partially filled bubble) wouldn’t just let him finish it. As you say, most kids would have just done it (and maybe made a few more guesses as fast as they could, too).</p>
<p>So, regardless of how you view my son’s personal standard of integrity, does anyone know if there is an appeal process, or a chance of having it checked manually?</p>
<p>No offense, but I this is your son’s problem. In reality, he really should of filled in the last, little bubble. I’m pretty sure that just getting ONE question omitted (no penalty) would force him from semi. It isn’t really a matter of so called ethics, you do what you have to, if he really wanted the semi status. I really doubt there is a system to have it checked manually, and it really wouldn’t be that fair. What about everyone else?</p>
<p>Um if it were me, I would just bubble it in during the next section. Since your son actually started bubbling in the answer, he was not working on the question or any subsequent questions when they called “put your pencil down”. I believe that he was in his full right to finish bubbling in the question. Also, if your school uses a wall mounted clock to time and not an electronic timer, it is very possible that they may have called it a second too early (or a second too late). This too is not fair so I think he would have been fully within his right to bend the rule.</p>
<p>If it is offered, you might consider hand-scoring. Try contacting the College Board, or ETS. I doubt they will show lenience due to the ramifications of the decision.</p>
<p>You are allowed to finish bubbling a response if you are in the process of doing it when time is called. ETHICS? Sir, we’re not talking about whether to eat animals or not, we’re talking about bubbling a response for a standardized test. LOL, your son will probably still become a semifinalist regardless. If that one omitted response really made the difference, you should appeal your case to the Collegeboard and hope for the best. Happy holidays!!!</p>
<p>yea on this year’s math, 1 wrong or 1 omit = 76 lol</p>
<p>by the way, i hope your son the best.</p>
<p>I don’t think one omission will make a deciding difference. I recommend your son start focusing on the SAT and SATIIs because those actually matter when college comes around.</p>
<p>what was ur son’s score and which state does he live in?</p>
<p>this is probably one of the most hilarious threads i’ve read all read because it’s actually serious.</p>
<p>Is it ethical for him to prevent himself from getting a good score when he could have easily just filled it in anytime without referring to the previous section and breaking the rule?</p>
<p>He should have bubbled it in, it wouldn’t have taken long to finish. I do it all the time, there is no problem with filling in your last answer if you already started, as long as you don’t go on.</p>
<p>He should have bubbled it in when he starts another section. See if you can contest it or not.</p>
<p>OK, so the general concensus is that “put your pencil down” means “finish the bubble you are filling, and THEN put your pencil down.” Oh well.</p>
<p>poison ivy, I don’t see what’s hilarious about this. </p>
<p>glucose and kinetic, this one question would have pushed his score into the “safe” zone for our state. (based on our calc’s, it would have given him 3 more points, solidly into semi status.) Our oldest son was a NM finalist, and he’s on full scholarship as a result, so in that regard, PSAT score is more important than SAT. (oldest son got a lot more scholarship offers based on being a NMfinalist than he did for his 1570 SAT).
This is why I was asking my question here. </p>
<p>thermodude, it was 210 in Indiana. Our cutoff runs 210-212.</p>
<p>Dolce, I’m sorry for you and your son. He’s very honest, indeed.
On the bright side, he may make the semis afterall. Good luck!</p>
<p>I can’t determine if you can order hand scoring on the PSAT or not - you might want to drop ETS an e-mail. </p>
<p>However you feel about the ethics of finishing the bubble, there is always the chance of having your test score canceled, or having an ‘irregularity report’ written up on the test. That’s not fun either. The advantage of practicing the tests is that you will more likely be able to complete them in the allotted time, and be lest likely to run into problems at the end.</p>
<p>Edit - my son missed commended by misbubbling a math section, so I totally sympathize with the OP’s frustration.</p>