Wow, writing test score brutal PSAT

[choirfarm]

We got his results for the PSAT in the mail this year. I was thrilled with his scores, though he won't make semi-finalist as he only got a 209. But... he missed 3 on the math and got a 72. He missed 4 on the critical reading and got 73. He missed 5 on the writing and got a 64:confused: I guess everyone else did a lot better than he did on it. I am proud of him as he did MUCH better on the writing section than any of his practice tests. That said, I figured out why his scores were so much higher on the Kaplan test book than on the Grubers. It is how they scale the scores. If he missed 5 on the writing test on a practice test, then Kaplan's test prep book gave him a 74. The Gruber test book gave him a 65.

 

As a 10th grader he got a 66 on reading, 65 on math and 58 on writing. I'm proud of him. It is hard to think that maybe 2 more questions and he would have made semi-finalist.

[Laura in CA]

Wow, those are big improvements from last year, and your son should be proud of himself! :001_smile:

 

 

BTW I am VERY impressed with all the kids who've taken the various tests, and done their personal bests. Heck, if we parents had to take these tests ... :001_huh: Someone posted, in one of these PSAT threads a day or two ago (I think it was 8FillTheHeart), a link to an article about a successful adult taking a standardized test and crashing and burning ... :tongue_smilie:

So, kudos to ALL the WTM (and other) kids out there taking these long boring tests! (SOOO glad *I'm* done with test-taking!)

 

 

ETA: here's the link to 8FillTheHeart's post about an adult taking a standardized test.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Laura in CA
added link

[Miss Marple]

My son's scores were all over the place this year. Overall he pulled up by 4 points, but he dropped 4 points in math :confused: which is really weird because he's finally doing great in math! And writing was his high score - that is NOT our reality here at home. So, if math had stayed the same he would have come up by 8. This is good for this son who does not do well on standardized tests (LDs). I had to discuss with ds the idea that only the best students at our public schools take the test in the first place and he scored just above average (although writing was in the top 25%) so he really is rather smart ;) I think he's finally understanding how it all works.

[AngieW in Texas]

I was surprised at my dd's score. On the practice tests (she took 4), she got 75-80 on the reading and writing sections and 65-70 on the math section. Her score this year was 14 points lower than it was last year and was lower than on any of the practice tests she took. She still got over 70 on the reading and writing sections, even though the scoring was pretty brutal.

 

What percentile ranking does it usually take for commended and is it indicated on the PSAT score report (because it wasn't on my dd's)?

[Michelle in AL]

Like you said, those scores are GREAT!! 209-210 is our cut off in Alabama. Want to move?

 

The bad part about this test is you can only get a couple wrong and you miss the cut off, a headache, a sneeze or just plain fatigue could cause you to miss a few.

[choirfarm]

Like you said, those scores are GREAT!! 209-210 is our cut off in Alabama. Want to move?

 

The bad part about this test is you can only get a couple wrong and you miss the cut off, a headache, a sneeze or just plain fatigue could cause you to miss a few.

 

Yeah, wish I could say that, but honestly this was probably the best he could do. He did much better than any of his practice tests. I knew it would be a long shot.

[choirfarm]

I was surprised at my dd's score. On the practice tests (she took 4), she got 75-80 on the reading and writing sections and 65-70 on the math section. Her score this year was 14 points lower than it was last year and was lower than on any of the practice tests she took. She still got over 70 on the reading and writing sections, even though the scoring was pretty brutal.

 

What percentile ranking does it usually take for commended and is it indicated on the PSAT score report (because it wasn't on my dd's)?

 

I think it is normally 201 or 202.

[elizabeth]

The percentile ranking for PSAT semifinalist is usually 97% and up, nearly a perfect score. Dd performed very well but likely not a NMSfinalist. However, if you think that you will not earn scholarship dollars based on the PSAT score that is not quite a semifinalist score, think again. Dd is getting offers on a fairly high range of percentile fro the previous years but not a score that would qualify her for semi finalist. To be a commended scholar opens up a huge range of scholarship money. I think and am certain that the mamas here expect far more out of their students . If your child scored above the 85th percentile they did very, very well and you should be pleased.

[Tiramisu]

Was the writing section somehow harder this year? Dd's writing score dropped so much I couldn't believe it.

[HiddenJewel]

Was the writing section somehow harder this year? Dd's writing score dropped so much I couldn't believe it.

 

Yikes! Now I really want to see dd's score. She only missed 2 on the writing last year.

[elizabeth]

I do not know how hard the writing portion was as dd stumbled on a couple of algebra problems but ....I received the score reports of other students who were all home school codes with the same first letters of those of our surname. These students were from the Pacific Northwest. I called the ETS service and those reports were picked up by UPS via an email prepay from the testing service this afternoon. Thank goodness I noticed the error immediately and did not peruse information that was not mine to see. The PSAT admins in Princeton NJ were beyond mortified and assured me that those who put 8 reports into one envelope would be fired. I hope it was not a repeat offense. It makes you wonder, if they screw that up what else might be wrong?? I am going over my daughters test booklet with a fine tooth comb to be assured her scores are as they should be, for better or worse. I shudder to think if someone had my daughter's personal information including her address. Bad. And when I told her I was a lawyer, she gasped. :lol: I said you should be pleased as I am a professional and will treat this information as if it were that of a client. So that means no names but if you have not rec'd the score reports, CALL. They could be on another home educating mother's kitchen table...I wish I were making this up. It has been a long day. Funny they make you jump through hoops trying to earn their coveted and actually cheap ass scholarship money but they sent scores with addressed reports to a stranger. Oh my. The emperor has no clothes.

[HiddenJewel]

I do not know how hard the writing portion was as dd stumbled on a couple of algebra problems but ....I received the score reports of other students who were all home school codes with the same first letters of those of our surname. These students were from the Pacific Northwest. I called the ETS service and those reports were picked up by UPS via an email prepay from the testing service this afternoon. Thank goodness I noticed the error immediately and did not peruse information that was not mine to see. The PSAT admins in Princeton NJ were beyond mortified and assured me that those who put 8 reports into one envelope would be fired. I hope it was not a repeat offense. It makes you wonder, if they screw that up what else might be wrong?? I am going over my daughters test booklet with a fine tooth comb to be assured her scores are as they should be, for better or worse. I shudder to think if someone had my daughter's personal information including her address. Bad. And when I told her I was a lawyer, she gasped. :lol: I said you should be pleased as I am a professional and will treat this information as if it were that of a client. So that means no names but if you have not rec'd the score reports, CALL. They could be on another home educating mother's kitchen table...I wish I were making this up. It has been a long day. Funny they make you jump through hoops trying to earn their coveted and actually cheap ass scholarship money but they sent scores with addressed reports to a stranger. Oh my. The emperor has no clothes.

 

While that is tragic, it could easily have been an honest mistake of someone who had had a very long, trying day.

[creekland]

We got his results for the PSAT in the mail this year. I was thrilled with his scores, though he won't make semi-finalist as he only got a 209. But... he missed 3 on the math and got a 72. He missed 4 on the critical reading and got 73. He missed 5 on the writing and got a 64:confused: I guess everyone else did a lot better than he did on it. I am proud of him as he did MUCH better on the writing section than any of his practice tests. That said, I figured out why his scores were so much higher on the Kaplan test book than on the Grubers. It is how they scale the scores. If he missed 5 on the writing test on a practice test, then Kaplan's test prep book gave him a 74. The Gruber test book gave him a 65.

 

As a 10th grader he got a 66 on reading, 65 on math and 58 on writing. I'm proud of him. It is hard to think that maybe 2 more questions and he would have made semi-finalist.

 

It sounds like the curve is harsh again this year. That makes me think that the students who said the test was much harder this year might not have been correct. It's only a slightly better curve than last year - very slightly.

 

Your son did well! Congratulations! I'm still hoping for 50s in all sections (maybe 60s in math) for my sophomore. We were supposed to get scores next Tuesday, but I'm not sure if that's changed now due to the deaths at school and everything being chaotic there. I'm also not quite as impatient as I was due to it all. We'll find out sooner or later.

[creekland]

While that is tragic, it could easily have been an honest mistake of someone who had had a very long, trying day.

 

:iagree: I feel for the person who made the mistake as well as for the parents whose scores were in that envelope.

[choirfarm]

It sounds like the curve is harsh again this year. That makes me think that the students who said the test was much harder this year might not have been correct. It's only a slightly better curve than last year - very slightly.

 

Your son did well! Congratulations! I'm still hoping for 50s in all sections (maybe 60s in math) for my sophomore. We were supposed to get scores next Tuesday, but I'm not sure if that's changed now due to the deaths at school and everything being chaotic there. I'm also not quite as impatient as I was due to it all. We'll find out sooner or later.

 

I'm sorry you are having to wait. I think it is just funny how writing seems to be everyone's good score, but even on the practice tests, it was his worst. I'll be curious to see how my middle son does next year as a 10th grader. I just don't know. I'm thinking his reading will be high, math low and I don't know about writing. We'll start the SAT math review this summer for him.

[choirfarm]

The percentile ranking for PSAT semifinalist is usually 97% and up, nearly a perfect score. Dd performed very well but likely not a NMSfinalist. However, if you think that you will not earn scholarship dollars based on the PSAT score that is not quite a semifinalist score, think again. Dd is getting offers on a fairly high range of percentile fro the previous years but not a score that would qualify her for semi finalist. To be a commended scholar opens up a huge range of scholarship money. I think and am certain that the mamas here expect far more out of their students . If your child scored above the 85th percentile they did very, very well and you should be pleased.

 

Yeah.. I was a commended scholar and got some good scholarships. But I went into the test blind. We had just moved. Everyone took the test. I had no idea what it was for or even what it was. We had around 15 finalists every year and another 30 or so commended. I discovered my senior year that it meant that I got money!!!! I didn't know that when I took it. I just thought maybe I could push him up there with a bit of test prep.

 

We were laughing though last night. I mean 209 is still better than 98 percent of the juniors who took the test. It isn't like he did horrible. We were just hoping... I don't think my middle one will get anywhere close. I think he will be doing well to get 200, but we'll see.

[nancy in nj]

Same experience here with the writing section. My daughter took the SAT in October (10 days before the PSAT) and scored a 790 on the writing section (730 without the essay), but only a 670 on the PSAT! She got 4 wrong on the PSAT, but only 1 wrong MC on the SAT. My daughter is actually a very strong writer so it is rather ironic that it was the writing section that dropped her from semi-finalist range to commended.

 

Her math and reading were within 20 points with the PSAT being higher.

[jamajo]

We got his results for the PSAT in the mail this year. I was thrilled with his scores, though he won't make semi-finalist as he only got a 209.

 

As a 10th grader he got a 66 on reading, 65 on math and 58 on writing. I'm proud of him. It is hard to think that maybe 2 more questions and he would have made semi-finalist.

 

Forgive my ignorance, I've done little research on the PSAT. But I thought Merit Finalists only counted for 11th grade scores. I'm I misinformed?

[creekland]

Forgive my ignorance, I've done little research on the PSAT. But I thought Merit Finalists only counted for 11th grade scores. I'm I misinformed?

 

You're correct. She was just mentioning his 10th grade score compared to his 11th grade score (see earlier post for that). He came up a bit. ;)

[Hoggirl]

The subforum for testing has a couple of threads on the curves. Somewhere over there I read that minus 1 on the writing was a 75 for the Wednesday day test and a 76 for the Saturday test. Don't know if that is reliable or not.

 

So, yes, the curve was harsh, at least for the writing section.

[Janice in NJ]

Dd got three wrong on the writing section: 1 hard, 2 medium. And yes, the two mediums were at the end. Tired? I haven't made her look at the questions to see why she got them wrong; I know she won't be happy. (Even though she should be. This is what I mean, this thing makes no sense. :001_smile:)

 

Three wrong= 68 on the writing section.

 

If a perfect score is 240, a 68 on the writing sections knocks you down to a 228 if you complete every other question perfectly.

 

I know we moms want to figure out how to make this work for our kids, but we need to understand the nature of this game. Look here:

 

http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf

 

There are 1,500,000 entrants with 8,300 winners. That's 1 out of 181 kids. That means that in a group of 1810 moms, 10 will have a story to tell about how to get that award and 1,800 of us will be there to say, "Yes, I tried that but it didn't work."

 

Look at it this way:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

Did you spot the winners? My kid just isn't going to be the "O." ;) NOT going to happen. I am SO psyched for the kid who is the "O" and I'm so happy for the proud parents. But I know who I am, and I understand my assignment. Not going to happen in this house.

 

BUT in the end we all deserve a kiss and a hug. So XOXO from me to you, mommas. Keep on keeping on! ;)

 

Peace,

Janice

[Laura in CA]

 

There are 1,500,000 entrants with 8,300 winners. That's 1 out of 181 kids. That means that in a group of 1810 moms, 10 will have a story to tell about how to get that award and 1,800 of us will be there to say, "Yes, I tried that but it didn't work."

 

Janice, I love your graphic illustration. Seeing it in black and white really helps put it all in perspective!

Edited December 9, 2011 by Laura in CA

[AuntieM]

So when do the Commended Scholar (and semifinalist) notifications go out?

Edited December 21, 2011 by AuntieM

[snowbeltmom]

Janice, I love your graphic illustration. Seeing it in black and white really helps put it all in perspective!

 

So when do the Commended Scholar (and semifinalist) notifications go out?

I believe the kids will be notified September 2012. I don't understand why the whole process takes so long.:confused:

[choirfarm]

I believe the kids will be notified September 2012. I don't understand why the whole process takes so long.:confused:

 

 

Actually, I think the commended letters go out in April. In September you find out which of the commended make semi-finalist.

[HiddenJewel]

Actually, I think the commended letters go out in April. In September you find out which of the commended make semi-finalist.

 

April is the College Plans Reporting Service

 

September are the Commended and Semi-Finalists

 

http://www.nationalmerit.org/steps_nmsp.pdf

[choirfarm]

April is the College Plans Reporting Service

 

September are the Commended and Semi-Finalists

 

http://www.nationalmerit.org/steps_nmsp.pdf

 

AAH, I see. college confidential kept talkin about the commended letters coming in April, but now I see they must have been talking about this college plans thing.

[Julie in MN]

Did you spot the winners?

 

Okay, you just made me dizzy :lol:

[sdreeves]

The writing was indeed brutal! Thanks for sharing everyone...it does seem to support the rumor that last year's test were considered too high and out of the norm.