Good Luck on PSATs

[fklhou]

All of the Sophmores and Juniors at my children school are taking the PSAT tomorrow.

GOOD LUCK on this test.

 

[sharbear]

My DS is taking the PSAT this morning also, I think that he's happy to not be going to his morning classes. He's just a soph. though.

 

[Kitty 34]

Thank you! My son will be taking his PSAT this morning. He's a Junior.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

My sophomore DS is taking the PSAT today also.

Good luck to everyone, espescially the juniors trying to get some scholarship money.

 

[fklhou]

MY dd is a sophmore also. She thought that the test was easy. She usually does very well on standardized tests. She scored 1100 on the SAT when she took as a 7th grader.

It seems to be very common practice now for sophmores to take the PSAT. I was not aware that you could do this until my son took the test as a sophmore two years ago.

The private school my older two kids go to is very competitive and my son's class set a new record for the school of having 75% of the class qualify as either National Merit Semi-finalists or National Merit Commended Students.

 

[Flyfly_Eclipse]

Thanks! I had to take the test today (required for sophomores here in South Florida). Wasn't too bad...writing grammar and math were fine, but the vocab was a bit tricky. Don't know how I can ever prepare for that part of the test without studying the dictionary I took it in 8th grade but I don't remember how I did. How long does it take for results to come back? I'm already curious to see how badly (I mean well....) I did. I do great of the FCAT...99 percentile for math and 98 percentile of the state for reading, but am not sure about the PSATs...

 

[nsyncraider17]

Thank you! I think I did very well, hopefully good enough to be a national merit semifinalist...we usually only have a few from my school. I took it freshman year and got a 178 and last year I got a 198, and the school called my mom and told her that they wanted me to be a national merit semifinalist this year. (no pressure there or anything ) I took a few practice tests and I was just under the normal minumum score to qualify, and I think I did extremely well today, so hopefully I made it!

We usually get our scores in December or January.

 

[JDY]

My students took it today. Guess what happened? a fire...

Not a drill...an actual fire - on the roof. It was small and no one was in danger. I wonder how it (being evacuated for 30 minutes) will effect the scores.

 

[poohandwendy]

My DD (junior) took PSATs on sat morning...we will get her results in dec. She took them last year also. In the spring...on to the SATs....yeah!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Both mine took theirs today - my ds is a sophmore, and my dd is a freshman.

I'm curious to see what they got on their tests.

I remember this was a voluntary thing when I went to school, and I think we did it on a Saturday. I was surprised that they took it as a matter of course.

 

[fklhou]

Freshman taking the PSAT? I thought that St. John's (the school my older two attend) was unusual for having Sophomores taking the PSAT. National Merit is a very big deal at St. John's and the school is very very proud of the number of National Merit Semi-finalists and Commended Students it produces every year. The concept that 75% of my son's class is either National Merit Semi-Finalist or Commended Students is amazing.

JDY, it will be interesting to see if the fire affects the scores. While my wife was taking the bar exam, a student had a grande mal seizure. Several students taking the bar exam rushed to his aid but most of the students kept on working on the test. They proctorers ended up giving everyone an extra ten minutes on that section of the test to make up for the disruption.

When I took the test, we were not warned about it or given any materials to study or practice test. We did take it during a school day. Despite not having prepared for the exam I did well enough to make National Merit Semi-Finalist and to go and get a National Merit Scholarship.

Good luck to all of the DISers who took the test.

 

[Indyman]

My 15 year old freshman son took it yesterday as well. He thought they were easier than the annual state standardized tests given earlier in the year.

 

[Mary Anne]

My son took this test also. He is a sophmore this year. He also took it last year as a Freshman. He scored very well last year, so I hope he impoves on his score this year. He too said the vocab was very hard but thought he did fine with the math portion.

 

[tar heel]

My 15-year-old took it yesterday, too. I forgot to ask him how he thought it was. I don't think having sophomores to take it for practice is that unusual. Our older son also took it as a sophomore at a different high school.

We didn't realize until after sophomore year that some students take the SAT early and often, too. Our school had two National Merit winners (and four commended scholars) and the other kid had already taken the SAT a couple times when he did the PSAT. My son never even thought about doing that, although it would probably be a good idea if you're expected to be a contender for the scholarships. He took the SAT only two times -- once in seventh grade for TIP and again as a high school junior.

The PSAT/early SAT as a predictor was right on target for my kid, too. He was told to look for a score as a junior that was 400 points higher than the TIP one -- exactly what he scored. His SAT score was also exactly what the PSAT predicted.