The Case of the Missing PSAT
Posted by Kate Dalby
When I started coaching the SAT back in the mid 80s, I would often start my evaluation of a student with his or her PSAT booklet from the previous fall.
Usually the students would get the scores back before the winter break in December, and I would get a flurry of calls over the vacation asking for my help. At the same time the students received the scores, they received the very PSAT booklets they used during the testing session.
These tests were a goldmine of information. I could see if the student miss marked, if there were careless mistakes, if a problem was overworked, and I could deduce much about the test taker’s habits. It was a great jumping off point and gave me concrete information that helped me come up with a plan of action to prepare the student for the SAT. (more…)
Maybe to call it “bait and switch” is extreme, but we are pretty annoyed. Last fall College Board introduced the redesigned PSAT and SAT, and released the scores in January 2016. At the time, it seemed as if all of the juniors we talked to were doing better on the new test, but we work with small numbers of students and figured that the new (and radically different) test was just better-suited to these individuals. This was also the perception of counselors we spoke to at various schools. Many of these same students also took an ACT in the fall with Inspiring Test Prep and in some cases, based on a comparison of 2015 PSAT scores and percentiles to the ACT diagnostic, we recommended they take the SAT, instead of the