After taking the PSAT/NMSQT test and upon analyzing your performance and answers in each of the three test sections closer, you can identify which type of questions (easy, medium and hard) you were successful at. You can use “My Online Score Report in My College Quick-Start” at collegeboard.org to examine which questions you tackled well or skipped, and even do further similar practice questions to improve.
The “Improve Your Skills” part of your report targets areas where you could improve your performance by giving you specific tips. For example, if you got questions 13, 15 and 17 incorrect in your Math section, you might have encountered problems with dealing with basic statistics, probabilities, graphs and charts on the test. The suggestion for improvement might be for you to practice doing problem-solving questions that involve basic probability, counting, and finding the arithmetic mean, median, and mode. You could look at charts, tables and graphs in online articles, magazines, and newspapers and practice interpreting the data presented in them.
Depending on how you performed, for example, the skills suggested for improvement in Critical Reading could include any or a few of the 21 academic strategies for this section: understanding tone, main ideas, and difficult vocabulary; determining an author’s purpose or viewpoint; applying ideas presented in a reading passage; comparing and contrasting ideas presented in two passages; or distinguishing conflicting perspectives. For your Writing, you might want to work on a number of skills for written clarity and conciseness such as recognizing logical connections within sentences and passages, following conventions in writing, or understanding the structure of sentences with abstract ideas.
Making a conscious effort to identify key areas in your PSAT to improve on will pay dividends later when you prepare for your SATs.
