Mariana Paredes
The Princeton Review
Saint Bonaventure High School
January 22nd 2009
PSAT Scores – Now What?
What is the PSAT?
The PSAT serves two roles.
• National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test
• A competition for both recognition and scholarship
• Commended scholar versus semi-finalist
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What is the PSAT?
The PSAT serves two roles.
• Practice for the SAT
• The PSAT is written by the makers of the SAT
• A window to the testing soul
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What’s on the PSAT?
What does the PSAT measure?
• They say:
• Critical reading skills
• Extracting information from dense passages and filling in
missing bits from sentences
• Math skills
• Algebra 1, basic geometry and arithmetic
• Writing skills
• Grammar
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What’s on the PSAT?
What does the PSAT measure?
• The Princeton Review says:
• Accuracy over speed
• Performance under time constraints
• Bubble skill, not accumulated knowledge
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The PSAT vs. the SAT
How does the SAT compare to the PSAT?
• The SAT is:
• More mathematically advanced
• Different in regards to the writing section, containing
an essay
• Considerably longer
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How’s it scored?
• Your raw score is determined as follows:
• Each correct response: 1 point
• Each blank response: 0 points
• Each incorrect response:
• On a multiple choice question: -¼ point
• On a student-produced response: 0 points
• This raw score is then scaled and converted into
a score between 20 and 80 for each of the three
sections – math, critical reading and writing skills
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So what’s this?
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It’s a diagnostic report
Your Score Report Gives You:
• Your scores
• The average scores for juniors are:
• 48 in critical reading
• 49 in math
• 49 in writing skills
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• The average scores for sophomores are:
• 45 in verbal
• 46 in math
• 46 in writing skills
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It’s a diagnostic report
Your Score Report Gives You:
• A selection index- used for National Merit
• Ranges
• An estimation of the point spread you would be
expected to fall between should you take retake the
test
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It’s a diagnostic report
Your Score Report Gives You:
• Percentiles
• Percentiles help you compare your performance on
the PSAT to the performance of similar students.
• They tell you which percentage of students you’ve
scored above.
• If you’re a junior, you’re compared to other juniors
• If you are a non-junior, you are compared to other non-juniors.
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It’s a diagnostic report
Your Score Report Gives You:
• An estimated SAT score
• SAT scores range from 200 to 800 per section.
• A 52 is roughly to a 520 on the SAT.
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It’s a diagnostic report
Your Score Report Gives You:
• The ability to review your test
• The score report displays the correct answer, your
answer, and the level of difficulty for each question
• The score report also provides you with a computeranalyzed diagnosis of patterns of mistakes
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So what do you do?
• Did I answer all of the easy questions?
• Personal Order of Difficulty
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So what do you do?
• Did I run out of time?
• Using your time effectively
• The Princeton Review 67% rule
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Your Resources
• The Princeton
Review Online
•
•
•
•
The Best 361
Counselor-O-Matic
Career Quiz
College Applications
• www.princetonreview.com
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Your Resources
• College Board
Quickstart
• www.collegeboard.com
• Access code
• Parent section for
scholarships and loans
• Student section with
college planning and
selection tools
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Your Resources
• National Merit
• www.nationalmerit.org
• Detailed scholarship
information
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Your Resources
• Bob Hahn
• bhahn@saintbonaventure.com
• (805) 648-6836 x 122
• Natalie Lajoie
• nlajoie@saintbonaventure.com
• (805) 648-6836 x 127
• Mariana Paredes
• Info.SB@review.com
• (805) 685-2221
• www.princetonreview.com
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