Thanks. Kid was hoping to be able to connect fall 23 digital PSAT results to Khan, which I think was possible in the old test?
Appreciate the advice.
It appears not, but I don’t know. Sorry, not very helpful!
There are some companies offering their own version of the test. Typically it’s a free sample test, for which a student needs to sign up. That’s an option if students run out of official prep material.
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Exactly. I am surprised every is saying they will mix and match. CB can try and paint it which ever way they want to but it’s not the same test.
I am not saying it’s the same test, but if it were different in terms of scoring, and the concordance tables weren’t updated, test prep experts and college admission peeps would be yelling that loudly.
Some of the test prep experts have gone thru the CB data in great detail.
Take all the blue book tests, including the PSAT ones. Check on Kahn Academy again. I thought it was great for my kids who just needed familiarity with the questions. They also worked through the Erica Meltzer grammar book. Nailing the writing part is key to a high EBRW score IMO - you bleed points otherwise.
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There is no way a test that requires you to read entire passages requires the same skills as the one that only has paragraphs. Even if the grading scale is the same.
It’s fine to take accept either, but to take a piece of each is adding apples and oranges.
But with the shorter passages is it easier for the adhd students to digest? lol can you tell I’m praying for a silver lining here.
I’m not a learning specialist so I can’t answer that. I can only go by my own observations.
I worked with the old SAT for many years and still work with the current ACT. The reading passages, in particular, were typically excerpts from longer source material. So, a kid might have read a longer passage about the effect of pesticides on bees. Virtually every student would understand the main idea: research has shown that pesticides have a detrimental effect on honeybees and that bee colonies are diminishing. That doesn’t mean every student would understand the jargon in the passage, or the methodology, etc… They might have gotten questions wrong for that particular passage, but they at least got the basic idea. They were able to use the context of all the other parts of the passage to understand.
In contrast, each new passage on the SAT might incorporate several ideas seemingly jammed into long sentences.
Another made-up example of passage content:
- The graph displays data about which animals see their shadow on Feb 2. and approximate dates when winter weather ended over a span of ten years.
- The text discusses that Feb. 2 is a holiday with its origins in Germany.
- The accuracy of “predicting” the start of Spring in various countries is fairly consistent amongst all animals studied.
- Researchers have concluded that the start of spring… complete the sentence
A. Is celebrated in countries worldwide with animals other than groundhogs.
B. Can’t be determined with consistent accuracy by any animals.
C. Has its roots in pagan cultures, in which ancient people used the occasion as a cause to celebrate mid-winter.
D. Can be sensed by some animals, and thus ancient people used the observation as a primitive calendar in various countries worldwide.
The correct answer (if there was any basis in fact with my bogus example), is probably some version of A, B, C, and D combined, lol. The difficulty with this test is that it can be very hard for some students to determine what information is most relevant. There is not much context but those four or five (often long) sentences. If a student had more material for context, they might more easily get the big picture. But College Board isn’t interested in giving students something potentially interesting to learn as a side benefit.
Again, I think it’s easier, but CB isn’t going to make a test that is easy for everyone, or what would be the point? I don’t think it’s necessarily easier for students with ADHD to do this test because if anything, they have to focus their attention more sharply on very particular words in order to best answer the question. I expect some students will find this test difficult and it will be interesting to see what the large-scale data reveals.
I think I’ve realized why this test bothers me: I feel that students should be learning a little something from the tests, but I have it all wrong 
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Poorly written questions are also somewhat common. Those always trip and my kids up. They get so annoyed with some of the answers. They are not programmed to pick the “less bad” answer.
My sophomore DD took the first practice test in the blue book app today. She’s historically a strong test taker (on CTP and CogAT), and she scored a 33 on the Pre-ACT offered at her school in the fall. But she was sick the day of the PSAT, so we figured she’d better figure out which is the easier test for her.
Well. She scored a 1570 on the digital SAT practice test today, with zero prep. I’m not saying that to boast, just that it seems…off? She’s a bright kid and a strong test taker, sure. But her older sister, who took many SAT practice tests four years ago and was a 36 ACT kid, could never crack 1500 on the SAT. (She’s now a sophomore at Rice and thriving.)
So as far as the discussion on whether the test is dumbed down – yes, it certainly seems so from our limited anecdotal experience today.
Couple more things – DD does have ADHD, and the short reading passages were MUCH easier than they would have been had they been longer. She missed zero reading/writing questions in the first module, and only one in the second module.
Also, she said the Desmos calculator is ridiculously helpful, and if you know how to use it even a little bit, you can plug all kinds of things into it and easily find the answers to the math questions.
Anyhow. We were both ecstatic after this first practice test, and she’s planning on taking the rest of the practice tests between now and the June 1 test date, and then seeing if she can get an ideal score on that date and putting it all behind her, lol. But she’s a little skeptical, because she feels like if she can earn this score, then there will be tons of perfect 1600 scores on the digital SAT.
Curious to see how it all shakes out.
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Lots of posts on Reddit about how easy the bluebook practice tests are in comparison to the actual test they took on March 9th. My son took the SAT. He said that the math module 2 was very difficult. Many difficult free response answers too. He didn’t find Desmos particularly helpful.
However, maybe your daughter just gets it, which is awesome!
Interesting feedback.
So far, the word on the street from my students regarding the March test (first full test administered nationally) is that the 2nd math module was hard for many students.
I recently completed one of the new additions to the practice test canon, #5. IMO, it was the easiest of the tests so far, at least for the verbal sections. I think it will take CB a few test cycles to nail the final shape of the digital test.
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Would you advise students wait before taking official tests? My sophomore would like to take the June test; he tests well generally and will be completing AP pre-calc so feels like the relevant advanced math stuff will be fresh in his mind. But if things are still shaking out, would he be smarter to wait?
Is there a compelling reason for your sophomore to take the test in June? My general opinion is that sophomores should wait, simply because they will have more learning under their belt in spring of junior year.
I don’t see any big changes, as the whole test itself is a big change. They just might tweak the difficulty level a bit. Even with the old test, some tests were more difficult than others. I personally advocate taking as few official tests as possible. They are expensive, time consuming, and stressful. But maybe your student is really motivated, wants to get it out of the way, or has upcoming commitments in junior year.
I think it’s a waste of money. Prep during the summer, take the August and October tests.
Thanks @Lindagaf and @tonygrace. Kid is really motivated and wants to give it a shot while stuff is fresh. Will have a busy summer and very intense junior year, so if he can knock it out now, that would be awesome.
He signed up, but we can always cancel if practice tests after self-guided prep aren’t where he wants to be. Agree that taking as few official tests as possible is best.
Thank you guys – it’s really helpful to know that the bluebook practice tests are relatively easy compared to the March digital test. I’ll give my DD a heads up.
In terms of timing, with my older one, the strategy was to prep the summer between sophomore and junior year, and then take the test(s) beginning of junior year – and hopefully be one and done. That worked out beautifully for her. She had completed pre-calc in sophomore year, so she had enough math. She just wanted to get it off her plate and got lucky with her score first time out.
My younger one is now also a sophomore and on a similar path. However, she’s a marching band kid and will be out late on Friday nights – sometimes at games a couple hours away – the night before Saturday morning SAT dates. So we were thinking to get it done this summer if possible, as she doesn’t focus well after too little sleep. She is also currently in pre-calc, so she’ll have enough math as well.
Their school offered school-day testing back in fall of 2020 because of Covid, but they no longer offer it, so my younger one is stuck with Saturday morning testing.
We thought that was the best timing too. It’s a relief to be done when your friends haven’t even taken their first test.
As for the blue book practice, it has value IMO, but we found the Khan Academy targeted practice to be great.
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Can you please elaborate on what made the Khan Academy targeted practice so helpful?
To be clearer, Khan academy uses official CB content. They do break it down into types of questions, but so does CB. I mention this because if someone wants to prep only using CB’s My Practice website, they can do so.
I will add screenshots here to demonstrate.
On the My Practice homepage, scroll to the bottom. There is an option called Student Question Bank.
From there, you can click on the specific types of questions you want to practice:
Then, you can choose level of difficulty. This is useful if you want to practice only hard questions, for example.
I personally find CB’s format for practice questions more straightforward than KA, but as CB directly links students to KA, there is no harm in trying both resources.
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