PSAT/SAT prep question

[dirty ethel rackham]

My son will be taking the PSAT next month and I wanted to do a little prep with him. He has taken the SAT a few times before so we know where his strengths and weaknesses come in. The one area that has baffled me was the Critical Reading section. Despite being a voracious reader and excellent at self-teaching from a book, his scores in the CR section are surprisingly low (for him - I have had college prof friends say they are good scores for their LAC.)

 

So, how different is the PSAT than the SAT? If I get an SAT prep book to use this year, will that suffice? Or should I get a PSAT specific prep book? I was planning on getting one from the library, but the hold queue is pretty long.

[readwithem]

He should be fine with an SAT prep book. If you're going to buy one, I would take him to the bookstore and have look at the layout of several different publishers. Some publish the explanations along with the answers, some don't. The official "Blue Book" published by the College Board is a good one, and my dd liked Princeton Review, though YMMV.

 

Success on the SAT (and the PSAT) requires some strategies, much like playing a game. The best thing is for your student to practice, practice, practice. Even one section (30 minutes or so) a day will add up to him being better prepared.

 

As for the CR sections, look at his responses and what's tripping him up. Sometimes it's not very clear ;) but if he can see trends it will help him predict what the test makers are looking for.

[Michelle in AL]

I think the critical reading section has a good bit of vocab in it, maybe that is where he is falling down.

 

I've always heard to use the Collegeboard Big Blue book for study and practice tests. You could do a practice test and see exactly which problems he's missing and focus on those.

 

My dd's weakness is critical reading too, despite lots of high level reading. She worked through the Barron's ACT English, reading and writing workbook to get ready for the ACT and I think it targeted problem areas well with enough practice sets. They might have something similar for SAT, which you could use for PSAT.

 

You can also order old PSAT tests from collegeboard.

[MomsintheGarden]

My dd used the McGraw Hill PSAT prep book and the sample test given by the College Board when you register with good results. I agree that it might be a vocabulary problem. Or it could be just that he needs more practice with close reading. Close reading is different from the fast reading that voracious readers tend to do. Both are important skills, but the PSAT/SAT tend to focus on the details.

 

What we did that really helped was go through all of her missed questions for the prep materials. We were able to discern patterns of weakness that she could try to correct.

 

GardenMom

[dirty ethel rackham]

It is definitely not a vocabulary problem. His vocabulary is better than mine (and I'm no slouch:).) Now, his mispronunciations is another matter, a sign of a big reader, but not a big listener:). I do think it is about details and he probably does read way too fast.

 

Ds just pointed out that we do have a prep book on the shelf already so I think we will go through the critical reading section over the next month to teach him how to read more closely. Funny, he can figure out complex formulas for physics and chemistry just from reading the book, but he doesn't do as well on this section of the test.

[Brindee]

My ds and dd are voracious readers, so to slow them down a bit, and to try to get the hang of the Critical Reading section, I just got the little McGraw Hill SAT Critical Reading "Increase your score in 3 minutes a day" book. I haven't had a chance to go through it yet, but it wasn't much and I thought if it can help them a little it'd be worth it.

 

It's by McCutcheon and Schaffer.

[cbollin]

One thing we're using a little bit is the online SAT question of the day, and online practices. It gives the reason why an answer is better and right. Maybe that can help too?

 

http://sat.collegeboard.com/practice/sat-practice-questions/passage-based-reading

 

 

-crystal

[Imprimis]

One thing we're using a little bit is the online SAT question of the day, and online practices. It gives the reason why an answer is better and right. Maybe that can help too?

 

http://sat.collegeboard.com/practice/sat-practice-questions/passage-based-reading

 

 

-crystal

 

Yes, I've been having my daughter complete the SAT question of the day every day. You can have them sent to your email.