Soph PSAT-Jr.PSAT-SAT?

lelalellen · November 1, 2004, 5:32am

What are the "typical" increases for these? My son did very average on his soph. PSAT. This year as a junior he took a PR diagnostic PSAT and went up 150 points. On the College Board's Practice PSAT -the one he got before the PSAT in Oct. he increased 260 points from last year's actual PSAT! HOWEVER, he just took a PR practice New SAT and did worse than the diagnostic and practice PSATs he'd recently taken, only scoring about 70 points higher than last year's actual PSAT.

Going from PSAT to SAT... is it much harder than going from Soph. PSAT to Junior PSAT?

Thanks.

kent05 · November 1, 2004, 3:00pm

For me, every test is a crap shoot. On my junior psat, i scores 218 (195 as sophmore) and am a merit semi finalist. One week before the psat, i took the sat and scored 1370. Since my score on the psat for math and verbal added to 1470, that was 100 difference in one week with no extra preparation. So, that 150 point jump is not nessasarily segnificant.

willywonka · November 1, 2004, 3:46pm

I think I got "1270" (since that's not the real score) on my soph. PSAT and a "1350" for my junior year. When I took the SAT a few months later, I got another 1350. I chalk it all up to the natural increase in knowledge over a year because, with only a few months without studying, my score stayed the same. I found out that was true when I took the SAT a second time a year later and scored a 1430 without studying.

(Then, of course, I wisened up and knew I would have to study to go higher on the third and last try, which I'm happy to say was a 1580.) An average PSAT score as a sophomore is certainly nothing to be worried about. I hadn't even had all the math classes covered on the PSAT by the fall of sophomore year.

I'd say your son just had a bad time with the practice new SAT, lelaellen. When I took the 10 Real Practice SAT tests before my final taking, my score was all over the place.

carolyn · November 1, 2004, 3:52pm

lelaellen - Just remember that the "new" SAT is much different than the old SAT and old PSAT. No analogies, harder math, more emphasis on reading skills. I suspect that the difference in scores may be due to this more than anything. You're not comparing apples to apples when you compare last years PSAT to the new SAT (or even this year's PSAT). Unfortunately, I think the class of 2006 is going to have a lot of uncertainty due to the change over.