1. PSAT – WHAT TO EXPECT OCTOBER 15, 2008

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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)

6. 39 Writing Skills Questions  1 section, 30 minutes  20 improving sentence questions  14 identifying sentence errors questions  5 improving paragraph questions

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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!)

14. 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!

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

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

17.  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.

18.  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

19.  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

20. Order of Difficulty  Section 1—Critical Reading (24 questions)  Sentence Completion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Easy Med. Hard 9—24 Critical Reading (no order)  Section 2—Math (20 Questions)  Problem Solving 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Easy Medium Hard

21.  Section 3—Critical Reading (24 questions)  Sentence Completion 25 26 27 28 29 Easy Med Hard 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 NO ORDER  Section 4—Math (18 questions)  Problem Solving 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Easy Med Hard  Grid in 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Easy Med Hard

22.  Section 5—Writing Skills  Improving Sentences 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Easy Med Hard  Error ID 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Easy Med Hard  Improving Paragraphs 35 36 37 38 39 No Order of Difficulty

23. Free PSAT Prep  http://education.yahoo.com/college/essentials/pra ctice_tests/psat/ http://education.yahoo.com/college/essentials/pra ctice_tests/psat/  http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/psat /prep.html http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/psat /prep.html  http://www.petersons.com/testprep/practice_test.a sp?id=436&sponsor=1&path=ug.pft.psat&referer_ type=SL&testname=PSAT&test_id=40&sitelicense_ key=553296 http://www.petersons.com/testprep/practice_test.a sp?id=436&sponsor=1&path=ug.pft.psat&referer_ type=SL&testname=PSAT&test_id=40&sitelicense_ key=553296 Practice Test

24.  Cracking the PSAT/NMSQT. 2009 Edition. Princeton Review, Random House, Inc.  Barron’s PSAT/NMSQT 2008. 13 th Edition. Sharon Weiner Green and Ira K. Wolf.  Collegeboard.com PSAT/NMSQT