28 PSAT Changes in 3 Minutes

Today we’re talking about what changes are coming to the PSAT.

This year, high schools will have from October 2nd to October 31st to administer the PSAT on whatever day or days they choose.

This PSAT will be a totally digital test to align with the new digital SAT launching for American students this coming March. That means students without a special accommodation will only be able to take the PSAT on computers or tablets.

Students can use their own devices, or their school — or even the college board — may provide them with one. But they’ll need to download the blue book app, which is where they’ll take the test. And schools are responsible for making sure all students have that software on a device before test day.

Some things about the PSAT will remain the same: there are still two reading & writing sections followed by two math sections. But instead of having a reading section followed by a writing section, the first reading & writing section will have questions of both kinds, with a combination of easy, medium, and hard questions throughout.

And because the new digital PSAT and digital SAT are multi-stage adaptive tests, how a student performs on that first section will determine both their score bracket and the difficulty level of questions on their second reading & writing section.

Then there’s the math. Just like the reading & writing, the first section has a mix of questions and determines the score bracket and difficulty of the second.

But unlike previous PSATs, calculators are allowed on both sections. They even give you one, built into the testing platform. And the open-ended questions are mixed in with the multiple choice, rather than being grouped together at the end of each section.

Now, while most of the math topics and question types remain the same — just without those few imaginary number questions — the reading & writing will be totally different. Rather than long stories with many questions about each, students will get short stories with one question about each.

So the good news about these PSAT changes is no more searching 80 to 100 lines for the information they need. But the bad news is no more freebie questions piggybacking off what they’ve already read.

Just as before, some questions include graphs and charts; and students will be tested in grammar and punctuation rules. But now there’s also poetry to analyze and understand, sentence completion is back on the test, and some questions are just based on a series of notes.

Test questions are dynamic, which means students get different questions from each other. And instead of an experimental section at the end, experimental questions will be woven throughout the test. So students won’t know which questions they’re working on are experimental and don’t count toward their scores.

But of course, the biggest difference between every previous PSAT and this screen-based one is that students can’t write on their test, can’t mark-up questions. They can click a button to cross out an answer, click a button to flag a question for later. But to actually write anything down, they’ll get scrap paper and have to go back and forth between that and the screen.

One piece of good news is that, because this new test is totally digital, there’s no more Scantron to fill in the bubbles darkly and completely with a number 2 pencil. Those days are over.

Scores are due out November 6 for students testing in the first two weeks of October, and November 16 for students testing later in the month.

Students can get used to the new testing interface, by working through practice questions and practice tests right now in College Board’s free Bluebook Exams app.

So get cracking, and if you have questions about the PSAT changes, call us at 732-556-8220. We are here to help.