Over the weekend, I woke up bright and early to a 6:00 am alarm clock. You may ask, “Wow. That is true dedication. She probably ran three miles or did laundry… you know? Something productive.” Well… only some of that is true. I do have pure dedication, and I did something productive… But it wasn’t running or household chores.
It was the Preliminary SAT… better known as the “PSAT.” And it can be a challenging objective test… if you aren’t the greatest at bubble answer sheets. When I say bubble answer sheets, I mean the ones that are run through machines. The ones that require you to use a #2 pencil, and if you don’t fill in a circle all the way you get the problem incorrect.
While I think that this test is great to prepare you for your ACT or SAT test, I am a little critical. The reason that these are scheduled exactly one Saturday before the REAL test is to prep the students and give them a sense of the time frames for each of the sections. (The PSAT takes about three hours.) I believe that it should be scheduled to where the students take it and get their results (that take a ridiculously long amount of time to come back in) before the ACT or SAT.
The PSATs aren’t beneficial to the students if they have no way of knowing how they did or what they missed right away or at least before the actual test. This being said, I propose a solution. I say that SAT employees should go around the country (providing jobs for more Americans… go me!) giving the tests to schools. As soon as the kids are done with their practice test, the worker can run them through a portable grading machine. This is so the children can get a good idea of how they will do, or how much they should study before their ACT.
Instead of doing this, students get their pre-test results in December… a week before they get their report that will determine their future (ACT score)! “Wow… I missed almost every question on the Grammar and Writing section… That really helps my ACT score NOW!”
At least with the PLAN test I could get my results before I was allowed to take the actual ACT. The PLAN test is an ACT prep exam taken by Sophomores in high school. They give kids an idea of what field they should consider for their future, what subjects they know well, and what subjects they need to work on before their ACT test their Junior year.
This is possibly the only “beef” I have with the ACT and SAT organization. After I was done with the PSAT, I went to a prep class offered at my high school for the Mathematics portion of the test. My school also provided me with additional packets of information about the two tests and gave me two booklets to quiz myself on. Wish me luck! J (502)
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