Sophomore PSAT 215

NotVerySmart
Sun, 18 Oct 2015 20:37:00 +0000

I’m still inclined to think that @intparent is correct. Slightly under $40 worth of prep books ended up being more helpful for me than the prep courses a few friends took. As scorers in the 2100+ range, they found that about 80% of the course consisted of prior knowledge such as a detailed breakdown of the math behind “guess if you can eliminate at least 2 answers.” The other 20% may or may not have made a difference - they weren’t particularly happy with their scores, though a lot of the middle-of-the-pack students appear to have benefited from the prep.

It isn’t as straightforward as picking a student’s weakest area on a practice PSAT, buying a book with 500 questions on that specific area, and laughing all the way to the FA office after a 10-point increase in a kid’s section score, but that strategy will work more often than not. If a student knows he/she won’t be able to stay on task well enough to self-prep, or has issues with test-taking strategy, prep may help. If that same kid believes his/her parents need to shell out $1800 for a prep course “because everyone else is doing prep center,” I’m skeptical.