This fall, many rising juniors will have the opportunity to take the PSAT/NMSQT through their schools. At its most basic level, the PSAT is a practice version of the SAT—which means it's a great way for students to get a taste of SAT-style questions and begin figuring out their strengths and areas for improvement. The PSAT is also the qualifying exam for students seeking National Merit Scholarships. While the PSAT can be an important exam for those reasons, students shouldn't let it intimidate them.
Let’s walk through the length, format, and types of questions students will see on the PSAT so that they can feel cool, calm, and collected come test day.
Length
Now that the PSAT is a digital exam, it is the exact same length as the digital SAT, lasting 2 hours and 14 minutes. This time is split up between two sections:
- Reading and Writing: 64 minutes, 54 questions (split into two modules)
- Math: 70 minutes, 44 questions (split into two modules)
There is also one break during the test: a ten-minute break after the Reading and Writing section. Therefore, the entire sitting will take students, under standard testing conditions, just under about 2.5 hours.
Format and common question types
Like the digital SAT, the digital PSAT is an adaptive exam that can be taken from a laptop or tablet—either the student's personal device or one provided by their school. Each section begins with an introductory module, and a student's performance on that first set of questions determines the difficulty level of the questions they see in the second module.
The Reading and Writing section tests students' vocabulary knowledge, ability to comprehend and analyze reading passages, mastery of grammatical concepts, and understanding of the rhetorical expression of ideas.
The Math section tests students' mastery of algebra, geometry, data analysis, trigonometry, and other math concepts. Students will answer multiple-choice questions and student-produced response questions.
How is the digital PSAT different from the digital SAT?
Taking the digital PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT 10 is almost exactly like taking the digital SAT: students complete the same number of questions on the same concepts in the same amount of time. There are just two differences:
- PSAT questions are less difficult. This is true across the board, but on the newly-released practice test, our team found it especially noticeable in the higher difficulty Math, the word-in-context questions, and the charts and graphs.
- There’s a smaller score range. While a perfect SAT score is a 1600, a perfect PSAT score is a 1520. Why? Well, a student's PSAT score is intended to be predictive of their SAT score, but because the PSAT is less difficult, the exams aren’t comparable in score ranges above 1520.
In what ways is the digital PSAT less difficult than the digital SAT?
There are dozens of ways—subtle and overt—that the test content is made easier. Let's take just one example:
There's a particular passage and data table that show up—with small differences—on both the official practice PSAT and on Practice Test 3 for the digital SAT. (If you’d like to follow along, on the PSAT, it’s question 10 in the first module of the Reading & Writing section; on the SAT, it’s question 10 in the higher-difficulty second module of the same section.)
Both questions utilize the same data and concern the same research study, but the little differences show how the College Board can alter a question and passage to shift their difficulty.
The SAT's answer choices are longer and more complex. In the PSAT's version of this question, answer choices are just a few words each and require students to merely pick an answer that accurately restates data found in the table. However, the SAT’s answer choices are each several lines long and test a student’s ability to first identify a conclusion within the passage and meaningfully use the data as support.
Figures on the PSAT are simpler to navigate. On the PSAT version of this question, rows in the data table are organized in ascending order, smallest to largest. But on the SAT, there’s no apparent order to the rows, making it more challenging for students to identify trends.
Passages on the SAT are more syntactically complex. In this example, the PSAT passage contains no commas or punctuation apart from periods, and there are no transitional words or phrases—a simplicity that makes the text relatively easy to interpret with a single read through. In contrast, the SAT passage is longer, and the structure of its sentences is more varied and complex; for instance, the passage starts with a long introductory clause that makes it challenging to identify the subjects of the first sentence, and the final sentence starts with “however,” establishing a sudden shift in the passage’s focus, which students will have to accurately interpret before they pick the right answer.
In a nutshell
All in all, the PSAT allows students to demonstrate what they already know and shows students what they can improve upon for the SAT/ACT and college-level work. The College Board itself says the best way students can prepare for this test is to take challenging courses, keep up with homework, and follow other standard school practices students are likely already doing. It’s important for students to take the PSAT seriously, especially if they're interested in qualifying for the National Merit Scholarship Program, but they should try not to stress about it too much. You’ve got this!
Click here for more details about the content of the first digital PSAT practice test released by the College Board.
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