The new SAT is about to make its debut—in the form of this Wednesday’s PSAT. I thought I would share some advice for “week of the test” advice for students.
• First, and most important: don’t panic. The PSAT matters for 50,000 out of the 1,500,000 students who take the test. That’s a little over 3 percent of everyone taking the test. For the vast majority of you, the PSAT is a warm-up and nothing more.
• That said, you shouldn’t take the test cold. Your school has test booklets on hand with a practice test inside. Go get one. If you have time, sit down and take the test under the timing restrictions given in the booklet. If you don’t have time to do that, do at least one reading passage, one Writing and Language passage, and problems of various difficulty within both of the two math sections. Get yourself acquainted with the test so it doesn’t surprise you on test day.
• Strategically, the best thing you can do on the Redesigned SAT and PSAT is to read the questions carefully. The importance of question stems has been elevated on this new test. Read them with extreme care so that you know you’re answering the question the test makers are asking.
• Know that the reading level on the new test has been significantly elevated. That means a lot of students are going to be staring at passages that are a grade level or two above their comfort level. If you find yourself lost on a reading passage, keep in mind that A) you’re not alone, and B) you can use the questions and answers to help you get an understanding of what the passage was truly about.
• Get some rest! We recommend a full night’s sleep for the TWO nights leading up to the test. That means getting to bed tonight at a reasonable time.
Good luck! We’ll be eager to hear how about your experience with the new test.