The Digital PSAT is Here
Are you considering signing your kid up for the PSAT this fall? The new change is a big one - this fall’s PSAT will be DIGITAL! Not pencil and paper like it has been since its inception, but on the computer. Still at your school, no changes there, but digital!
This fall PSAT will be our first real look at what Collegeboard will do once they switch entirely to digital for the SAT (which starts in March 2024 - THIS upcoming March). It will also be a great opportunity for all students in the classes of 2025-2027 to get an idea of where the test is heading in a lower-pressure environment than the real thing. And it is of course additional testing material available while testing materials are currently scant (only 4 official tests currently exist online).
The test questions themselves will be pretty different, in addition to how different it feels to take a test on a computer compared to testing with a packet and pencil. Although today’s students have lots of experience testing online, practicing with the real materials will still be necessary to truly excel.
Major Differences between Digital and Paper and Pencil
Timing
The Digital SAT is a significantly shorter: 2 hours 14 mins compared to just over 3 hours on the pencil and paper SAT. The digital PSAT is the same length as the digital SAT.
Content
The Math remains largely the same, with some new question topics thrown in (e.g. more emphasis on parabolas). You still get to use a calculator of your own as well as one built into the testing system.
Reading and Writing are now placed together in one section, and the long passages are gone. The Writing questions remain largely the same, though also no longer placed into full passages (wahoo!), while the Reading questions have changed significantly. Some of the new reading questions resemble SAT questions from two iterations ago (the 2400-score from 2005-2015 era), and some of them look more like LSAT questions. Many more of them are new question formats altogether (e.g. the notes questions).
Difficulty Level
This one is the most interesting changes, as we have seen so many different ways to bring testing into the digital world. The setup of the digital SAT and digital PSAT is more like the GRE than the more adaptive testing of the GMAT: the first section is the same for everyone in both the Reading/Writing section and the Math section. However, the second section of each is based on how well you did on the first section. So far, there seem to be only two iterations of each second section. That is, there is a Reading/Writing Section 1, then a Reading/Writing Section 2A (the easier one) and a Reading/Writing Section 2B (the harder one). So for a hypothetical student who does well in Reading/Writing and then not so well in Math, they would take Reading/Writing Section 1, do well, and then take Reading/Writing Section 2B. For the Math Section, they’d take Math Section 1, and then not doing so well, they’d then take Math Section 2A.
While you are testing, they do not tell you which section you took (A or B). There are some tricks they employ early on in each section too, such as overly easy or difficult questions near the beginning, to disguise which section you’re in. We have seen these kinds of “head games” in other computer adaptive graduate level exams and can help you spot them. But the most important thing to do is keep answering the questions to the best of your ability, no matter how easy or difficult they seem.
So is the new digital SAT / PSAT easier, or harder? The answer is both. It will be easier for some, and harder for others. In most everyone’s case, this will be a good thing. Many of you reading this wonder why on earth it would be a good thing for those students getting the hard section? Well, on the one hand, there are more opportunities to differentiate between each test taker when they are already sorted into two buckets up front, which means the score accuracy and predictability should improve. On the other hand, students will also hopefully get to worry less about careless mistakes and instead focus on the concepts and approaches they’ve learned. And part of why the test is now shorter by 45 minutes is because of the easier/harder groups - the test makers no longer have to make every student answer every question to determine which students can answer only the easy ones well and which students can answer all of them well.
Predictions
All that being said, I’d predict that students are going to like this new Digital format over the previous pencil and paper format. Will all students prefer digital? Absolutely not. There are certainly enough students out there with an aversion to digital test taking that it won’t matter one iota to them. But for many students, they will vastly prefer the shorter timeframe (2-ish hours) and the frenetic switching (no long passages, just single short passage/sentence questions) compared to the old test with the longer format passages and the super long reading section up front.
In fact, I will go so far as to predict that the same students who liked the SAT before the change will generally still like the SAT after the change, and the switch might win over some ACT adherents as well.
What Could Go Wrong?
Your school / you not being prepared enough with the laptop apps for everything to run smoothly on time. Collegeboard requires that you bring your own laptop or sign up to borrow one well in advance.
The test itself might look pretty different from the already released study materials. It’s always possible! The last time they did a test redesign, there was a significant enough change in question frequency that students ended up allocating study hours incorrectly based on what was released.
There may be more questions scrapped than normal because they didn’t obtain the right pattern of correct answers among high and low scoring students. Every PSAT has had the possibility of questions scrapped because the PSAT can’t possibly be tested to the same level that the SAT is. Some tests have had none removed, others have had one or two questions removed, and a very small amount of tests have had 4 or even 5 questions scrapped. A test redesign may be one of those times where many more questions than normal get scrapped. This is bad for the curves, especially when it comes to merit scholarships. But it is what it is, and is better than them keeping questions that don’t accurately reflect the right difficulty level.
On an individual level, you can have difficulty with the questions themselves, the tools or testing ecosystem in general, or have difficulty focusing because it is digital. You also may have struggled to study sufficiently because the materials are few and far between. Most schools will tell you the PSAT “doesn’t matter,” that it’s “just a testing opportunity,” but we’ve found that doing well on the PSAT can very much help your chances into college, and keep you motivated throughout the year with more continual reminders that colleges are interested in you.
So What Should You Do?
Sign up for it. Study for it. Take it.
We’re still in favor of signing up for and taking the Digital PSAT if it’s possible for you. Schools have more freedom to choose the date this year, so hopefully the date chosen is one that you can fit into your calendar, whether you’re missing class time or coming in on a Saturday.
You can study using the materials that already exist, or you can maximize the materials that exist by using a professional tutor who knows the material inside and out and has additional practice materials to supplement what you’re learning. We won’t know for certain exactly what will be on this upcoming test, but we can maximally prepare you to go into test day feeling confident, whether that means a light familiarity with the question types or a practiced anticipation and readiness for anything they can throw at you.
