After you have completed your PSATs and received your results, what’s next? Let’s have a look at your scores: what is a good PSAT score report?
On your PSAT score report, you will notice your scores for Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing Skills, reported on a scale from 20 to 80 points for each section or a total of 60 to 240, which is also referred to as your Selection Index (S.I.) and used for scholarship entry by the National Merit Scholarships Corporation (NMSC). The average scores for eleventh-graders’ scores from 2002 to 2010, according College Board and the NMSC, ranged from 47 – 48 in Critical Reading, 48 – 49 in Mathematics, and 45 – 50 in Writing Skills. The average tenth grader’s scores for the same period are: 42.5 – 43 in Critical Reading, 44 – 45 in Mathematics, and 40 – 45 in Writing Skills. The national percentile located just below your S.I. tells you how your scores compared with those in your grade level who took the PSAT/NMSQT that year. For example, if you are a Grade 11 student who has a percentile of 60, this means you have performed better than 60 percent of the all eleventh graders who have taken this test.
The PSAT scores parallel those on the SAT, which scores between 200 and 800 on each section of the test. A great way to get an idea of how well you will do on the SAT is by simply adding a ‘0’ to your PSAT score. Essentially, you could transpose your PSAT score of 65 (out of 80) in Math to an SAT Math score of 650 (out of 800) to get a good sense of how you might do (an estimated range would be 600 – 740). However, it is worth noting here that the SAT tests cover academic curricular areas slightly beyond those tested on the PSAT that you would study in Grade 11 and the beginning of Grade 12.
Projecting ahead to SAT preparations, students with their PSAT scores can estimate their SAT score range for Critical Reading, Math and Writing. By applying them to improve their estimated performances on the SAT, students should:
• Develop their overall academic skills through intensive course work;
• Do more extensive, focused reading outside of the classroom;
• Do active problem-solving activities;
• Write practice SAT essays by responding well to prompts;
• Practice strategies that would help them to be more familiar with test directions, question types and time.
