Interpreting Your PSAT Results
Unlike other exams like the ACT or SAT, the PSAT is administered directly through your school. Because of COVID-19 restrictions for reopening, schools were given the option to offer the PSAT to their students in January 2021 instead of the national October test administration. Some schools in San Diego county kept the original October PSAT date, but others still have students waiting to take the test on January 26th. Whether you tested in October and need clarity on your score or have not yet tested but need to know what to expect, the best place to start is the full online score report from College Board. The PSAT report isn’t easy to interpret, so determining which pieces of your PSAT score report are important as well as what they are telling you about your performance can be a difficult task.
Getting Your Results
While your school will give you a copy of your results, your full score report is only viewable by logging into your College Board account. There, you’ll have much more information about your test, score, and how you are performing relative to your peers. This will give you the specific information on exactly which questions you answered incorrectly. You can also request a copy of your test directly from the school, which will give you the test booklet that contains all of your real work, answers, and any other notes you made during the test. By requesting your copy of the test, you may get more insight into why you chose one answer over another or correctable mistakes you made in the scratch work process. All of the information you have about your score will help you determine where you are now and give you accurate feedback on what you need to work on going forward.
Understanding Your Results
Because the PSAT tests slightly easier concepts than the SAT, the maximum score you can receive on the PSAT is a 1520. On your score report you’ll find your composite score as well as the section scores for Reading and Writing and for Math. These scores are given alongside percentiles to compare your scores to the national averages. However, the percentiles are based on a very small sample size, so they are less trustworthy than the score itself in determining how you compare to your peers. The only exception would be if you scored in the very top percentile group (e.g. 99th percentile), as answering less than two questions incorrectly on the PSAT is a good predictor that you have the ability to be in the top percentile group on the SAT (e.g. a score of 1590 or 1600).
For many juniors, the NMSC score is a big motivating factor in doing well on the PSAT. You are given a National Merit score in addition to your PSAT score that determines your eligibility for becoming a National Merit Scholar. Earning this honor can be used for scholarships and recognition on the national level, including being listed on the official National Merit Scholar site. California has historically had some of the highest score requirements in the nation, and holds the third-highest score cutoff for the class of 2021, with a qualifying score of 221 or higher. To determine this score, you should drop the zero at the end of your section scores, double your EWR score, and add your Math score. For a student who scored a 620 in the ERW section and a 680 on the Math section, this is what that would look like:
ERW = 620 -> 62 Math = 680 -> 68 62(2) + 68 = 192 NMSC Score
Note that your language (ERW) score is weighted much more heavily than your Math section towards your NMSC score, so your performance in that section has a much bigger impact on your ability to qualify to be a National Merit Scholar. The NMSC has multiple levels of acknowledgements for different scores, so even if you don’t hit the qualifying score to be a finalist you may still qualify for additional scholarships or recognition.
What To Expect
It’s common to see a natural bump in PSAT scores from sophomore year to junior year but not from junior year to senior year. The content of the PSAT is designed to be at the beginning level of a high school junior. Therefore, you’re likely to learn a lot of the content on the PSAT throughout your sophomore year and into the beginning of your junior year, which you carry directly into the PSAT in October of your junior year. When you take the PSAT in October of your senior year, you likely haven’t continued to work deeply in the content on the PSAT for the year or more since you’ve learned it. Consequently, you’re less likely to have had those concepts reinforced enough and with enough practice to show improvement since your last PSAT.
However, you can make a concerted effort to reinforce those concepts outside of school. Test prep for the PSAT is particularly beneficial because it allows you to revisit the topics that you learned but may be a little iffy on and gain the score increase that you don’t naturally see going from junior to senior year. If you are looking to increase your score for the next test, continuous focused exposure to official material is the best way to prepare.
