PSAT – WHAT TO EXPECT OCTOBER 15, 2008

The Test  Time  About 2 hours and 10 minutes long  30 minutes of filling out paper work  Skills  Reading, math reasoning and writing skills that are important for college success  Knowledge and skills developed in all of your classes and experiences  Critical thinking—reason with facts and concepts

The Test  5 Sections  Two 25 minute critical reading sections  Two 25 minute math sections  One 30 minute writing skills section  Scoring  1 point for each correct answer  No point for skipped answers  Subtract ¼ of point for wrong answers on multiple choice questions

48 Critical Reading Questions  2 sections, 25 minutes each  13 sentence completion questions  8 short-paragraph critical reading questions  27 long-paragraph critical reading questions

38 Math Questions  2 sections, 25 minutes each  28 standard multiple-choice questions  10 student-produced response (grid-in) questions (ALWAYS ANSWER THESE…THERE IS NO PENALTY FOR GUESSING)

39 Writing Skills Questions  1 section, 30 minutes  20 improving sentence questions  14 identifying sentence errors questions  5 improving paragraph questions

Should I guess if I don’t know the answer?  Educated guessing means guessing an answer whenever one or more of the choices can be eliminated as definitely wrong.  YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY USE EDUCATED GUESSING! IF YOU CAN ELIMINATE EVEN 1 CHOICE…GUESS. THE ODDS ARE IN YOUR FAVOR!!!  Don’t randomly guess…  You have no idea what the question is asking.  You don’t have time to really read the question.

Do I have to answer every question to get a good score?  You are not expected to be able to answer all the questions.  Students can earn an above-average score by getting only half the questions right and skipping the rest of the questions.  Work carefully and efficiently…be sure you have answered all the easy questions. Usually the easy questions are at the beginning of many sets of the same question types.

Reducing Anxiety  Relax…this is just the first step in the long road of getting ready for college.  Get a good night’s sleep before the test.  Eat a good breakfast.  Bring a watch, pencils and calculator.  Wear comfortable clothes…be sure you bring something to wear if the room is cold.

Calculators  There isn’t a single question on the PSAT for which a calculator is required. There are several questions where a calculator could be used, and since they are permitted…bring one!  If you forget to bring a calculator, you will not be able to use one.  Almost any standard calculator will do; four- function, scientific, and graphing calculators are all allowed.

Critical Reading Questions  Tackle short passages first.  Tackle passages that have familiar subjects first.  Critical reading questions for a passage are not arranged in order of difficulty. Try all the questions on the passage.  Read quickly and purposefully.

Critical Reading  Read the blurb at the beginning  Quickly read for the main idea  Choose a question and paraphrase it  Read what you need to answer the question  Answer in your own words  Eliminate answers and make your best guess.

Kinds of Reading Questions  Vocabulary in-context  Paraphrasing or interpreting specific information in the text (the answer will be in the reading)  Analyzing or finding the central though of a passage (hint: be sure you check the opening and summary sentences of each paragraph.)  Finding implications and drawing inferences from the text (requires your judgement)  Evaluating the techniques, logic, application of the text (CHALLENGING!)

Sentence Completion Strategies  Cover the answer choices with your hand and read the sentence.  Think for yourself. Read the sentence and write your answer in the book.  After you think you know the answer, uncover the answer choices and look for the word that is closest to the word you came up with.  Look for clues and trigger words!

Samples  John made some ______ comments about Marcus’s artwork.  intelligent  critical  interesting  dry  Appreciative ???????????????

 John made some ______comments about Marcus’s artwork, which John though was fantastic.  intelligent  critical  interesting  dry  appreciative

 Many feature films are criticized for their ____ content, even though television news is more often the medium that depicts violent events in excessive detail.  In a vitriolic message to his troops, General Patton insisted that he would ____ no further insubordination, no matter how brutal the ensuing engagements might become.

 Many feature films are criticized for their ___ content, even though television news is more often the medium that depicts violent events in excessive detail.  discretionary  graphic  dramatic  artistic  honest

 In a vitriolic message to his troops, General Patton insisted that he would ___ no further insubordination, no matter how brutal the ensuing engagements might become.  impede  brief  denote  brook  expose

Order of Difficulty  Section 1—Critical Reading (24 questions)  Sentence Completion Easy Med. Hard 9—24 Critical Reading (no order)  Section 2—Math (20 Questions)  Problem Solving Easy Medium Hard

 Section 3—Critical Reading (24 questions)  Sentence Completion Easy Med Hard NO ORDER  Section 4—Math (18 questions)  Problem Solving Easy Med Hard  Grid in Easy Med Hard

 Section 5—Writing Skills  Improving Sentences Easy Med Hard  Error ID Easy Med Hard  Improving Paragraphs No Order of Difficulty

Free PSAT Prep  ctice_tests/psat/ ctice_tests/psat/  /prep.html /prep.html  sp?id=436&sponsor=1&path=ug.pft.psat&referer_ type=SL&testname=PSAT&test_id=40&sitelicense_ key= sp?id=436&sponsor=1&path=ug.pft.psat&referer_ type=SL&testname=PSAT&test_id=40&sitelicense_ key= Practice Test

 Cracking the PSAT/NMSQT Edition. Princeton Review, Random House, Inc.  Barron’s PSAT/NMSQT th Edition. Sharon Weiner Green and Ira K. Wolf.  Collegeboard.com PSAT/NMSQT