Welcome back! As we move into December and the holiday season kicks into full swing, test preparation season starts to kick into full swing, as well, as a raft of scores come out this month.
The most notable of these scores are PSAT scores, which should be available to all students today, December 11th. PSAT results are accessible through the College Board website; if you have not created a free account, you should do so to view your scores. Your PSAT scores are also posted in your Naviance account, if you have one.
Here is a sample score report. On the first page, you’ll see that the PSAT contains two sections – verbal and math – that are each scored from 160-760, for a total of 1520. Below each of your scores, you can see your percentile, which tells what percentage of test-takers you scored better than. Within verbal, you receive two scores – Evidence-Based Reading and Writing/Language – that are each of out of 38 (half of 76, or 760). On the second page, you’ll see your National Merit Index – only relevant to the highest of scorers – and on the third page, you’ll see a question-by-question breakdown of which questions you got right and wrong in each section. Each question is rated by difficulty
In College Board, Clicking “View Details” on your score dashboard will take you to your detailed score report; there, the “Test Questions” tab will take you to the actual questions for your test, which you can sort by difficulty or by which questions you got incorrect. Once on the “Test Questions” page, clicking on the question numbers in the left-hand column takes you those test questions.
Once you have accessed scores, you should then link them to the Khan Academy platform; creating a KA account is also free. The KA platform will analyze your results for you, identify weak areas, and generate problem sets for you to practice those weak areas. This platform is an invaluable resource, so please contact us if you have any questions about how to use it.
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Just a few days from now, on December 14th, the December 1st SAT scores (multiple-choice only) become available online. Like PSAT scores, these scores can also be exported to KA and analyzed. For ACT test-takers, December 8th ACT scores become available online starting December 18th.
When you get all your scores back, remember to keep your results in context… most students should use December results as a baseline and aim for their best scores in the spring of junior year or the fall of senior year. If your score doesn’t come out where you ultimately want it to be yet, do not worry: you are still very early in the testing cycle.
Please contact us with any questions about how to interpret your scores this month.
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