College Counseling at St. Margaret's

I asked two test preparation professionals to submit guest posts on the PSAT.

The first is by Mr. Allan Pullido.

Allan Pulido is the Outreach Director for The Princeton Review and also has 13 years of SAT teaching experience. He studied Math and English at UC Irvine and is an avid San Diego Chargers fan. Feel free to contact him with any questions you may have.

The PSAT is comprised of three (3) sections: Math, Reading and Writing. Each section ranges from 20-80 points so your total possible score is 240. The average score for each section is approximately 50 for high school juniors (therefore, the average total score is approximately 150). The PSAT is also known as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT), and in California, the minimum qualifying score has been 218 points total for the past few years. National Merit can mean becoming a semi-finalist, finalist or actual winner of scholarship money. For many students however, National Merit is simply the proverbial pat on the head. Colleges do not judge your application based on your PSAT scores.

The way to translate PSAT scores into SAT scores is to add a zero to each PSAT result. For example, a 55 on the Math is approximately a 550 on the official SAT. It’s important to remember that the PSAT and SAT are still slightly different exams. The translation is meant to estimate what you might receive on the real thing, not to predict it.

Now that you have your PSAT scores, you have one half of the information you need when preparing for the real SAT. The next step is to consider which colleges interest you the most. Whilst you will probably think of college options in terms of academics, ranking, popularity and test scores, remember that other important factors are location, weather, distance from home, sports, school spirit and social activities. After creating a tentative college list, you should compare your PSAT scores with the average SAT scores of each school. Now you will know how much preparation, if any, you will need for the official exam.

Additionally, it’s important to note that the PSAT is a standardized test that measures how well you take the exam. The PSAT is not an IQ test, not a placement test and certainly not a predictor of your success and happiness post St. Margaret’s. Like many skills, test taking is something everyone can learn and there are certainly differences in everyone’s starting, natural abilities. The best testers typically love puzzles, online role playing games and “pwning noobs” (sic) online. The rest of the normal, human, prom going population typically hates all forms of standardized testing. No matter where your scores are, you probably want them higher and there are many ways to accomplish this goal.

If you received the PSAT test booklet, don’t forget to use the score report and booklet to check your errors and blank answers. In the Math and Sentence Completion sections, the problems become more difficult as you progress with the questions. This means you should be focusing on getting the easy and medium problems correct FIRST because the hard problems are still worth the same number of points. There’s no sense in hurrying when you are making mistakes with the easiest problems. In the Critical Reading section, rephrase the statements to actual questions (e.g. “In lines 6-12, the author mentions the flock of seagulls in order to” into “WHY does the author mention the flock of seagulls”). On the real SAT, you will also tackle the 25-minute, handwritten essay to start the test. Ignore the long winded quote presented to you and go straight to the actual prompt on the bottom. The quote tends to confuse students–you don’t have to refer back to the quote or use it in your response if you don’t want to.

Regardless of your PSAT scores and your college goals, don’t freak out about your results. You took the PSAT to discover your natural abilities and now that you have that information, you can make the necessary adjustments to improve your scores on the real thing. If you are interested in preparing for the official test, ask your counselors for advice or contact me. Remember that SAT scores are only one part of the application process and that other factors such as your GPA are much more important.

Good luck!

~ Allan Pulido