The PSAT is given the third Tuesday or Saturday in October. Registration must be done through a high school. It is school officials’ prerogative to allow home schoolers to participate at their site.1 (Our public school contact is the guidance counselor.) The tests must be ordered, so you should contact your local school as soon as possible to inquire. We have paid $10.00 for the test, but schools can set their own fee for administering it. Home schoolers have a specific code in each state; the Texas code for PSAT, SAT, and AP is 994499. Assure your school contact that your child’s score will not be calculated with their students’ scores.

Students of all ages may take the PSAT. In our hometown all public school sophomores must take it for practice. I would recommend having your children take it at least once prior to their junior year, if possible. Taking it early acquaints them with the flow of the whole process and may reduce test anxiety when the scores really count. The score report will allow you to gauge areas of needed study and to work on appropriate test-taking techniques.

There are ways to grease the hinges on this door of opportunity. Visit your local high school to register and to get a copy of the PSAT/NMSQT Student Bulletin. In addition to good information, it contains a full-length practice exam. Most large bookstores carry test preparation books. The writing section of the PSAT is different than SAT1 Verbal, and practice is helpful. Computer programs are also available.

The determining factor in qualifying as a semifinalist is the Selection Index score. This score is the sum of the three scores from the Verbal, Math, and Writing sections of the test. Each state varies in its cut-off score. Out of a possible 240 points (80 points x 3 subtests), the qualifying score for semifinalist in the state of Texas for 1999 was 214. The index score must be in approximately the top 2% of the state to continue in the competition.

The National Merit Corporation notifies 16,000 students in late August that they have achieved Semifinalist standing. A list of Semifinalists is sent to four-year U.S. colleges/universities and also to local newspapers for publication in September. Then the paperwork begins, and your mailbox begins to fill with college materials. You will need to have good records of all your child’s accomplishments and some great folks upon whom to rely for a letter of recommendation.

Semifinalists qualify as finalists by completing the Merit Scholarship application, which includes a complete high school transcript, Activities/Awards/Leadership Positions section, school recommendation, and self-descriptive essay. We were fortunate to have an incredible Advanced Placement (AP) English teacher as a source for the school recommendation. A hint for a great letter of recommendation is to give your recommendation writer a brag sheet about your child. This will allow him to comment on specific attributes and contributions your child has made. This letter is very important; the committee wants to see a big picture of your child. I was told that I could write the recommendation myself as a home school educator, but I preferred to choose a more unbiased source.

Check to be sure that the materials have been received. I called the corporation to verify that my son’s materials were in the system because I had learned a hard lesson from another scholarship process. When I called to see if my son had won (after the decisions had been made), I was told he was not in the computer and that his application must have gotten lost in the mail. In the future, I will always make follow-up calls to assure receipt of materials.

Students must also take the SAT1 within certain time parameters and earn scores that confirm the PSAT performance. Our students have always taken the November SAT1 while still primed from the PSAT preparation. At this point, the corporation sends great information specific to home schoolers about how to proceed with completing the paperwork required. If you make it to the semifinalist stage, be sure to meet all the deadlines. A National Merit Corporation vice president told me that it is painful to talk to parents who submitted data late, resulting in the termination of their child from the competition.

From the 16,000 Semifinalists, 15,000 students advance to the Finalist standing. Certificates of Merit are sent to these students in February. From the 15,000 Finalists, 7,900 Merit Scholars are chosen.

There are three types of Merit Scholarship awards: National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarships, and college-sponsored Merit Scholarships. All Finalists are considered for the 2,500 National Merit $2,500 awards. The 1,200 corporate-sponsored awards have certain criteria Finalists must meet in order to be considered. There are 4,200 college-sponsored awards for Finalists who plan to attend those institutions.

In late January, a committee of experienced college admissions officers and high school counselors meets to choose the winners of National Merit $2,500 scholarships. Committee members evaluate each Finalist’s academic record (course load and difficulty level, depth and breadth of subjects studied, and grades earned); scores on PSAT and SAT1; the student’s essay about attainments, interests, and goals; demonstrated leadership in significant activities and contributions to the school and community; and the school’s written recommendation and characterization of the Finalist. In March, the corporation notifies students who are chosen as National Merit Scholars and corporate-sponsored scholarship recipients. The college-sponsored winners are notified in April through June.

The PSAT is utilized by the College Board as a conduit for colleges and universities. Through its Student Search Service, the College Board enables colleges to mail information to students who meet certain criteria and who may be interested in the programs and in majors they offer. Students may check the Student Search Service option on the PSAT exam form to take advantage of this service. However, the College Board does not report specific scores to schools; we availed ourselves of this opportunity the junior year of test-taking.

I have two sons who became National Merit Scholars after completing this process. It seems incredible for one test to have such an impact on scholarship opportunities. Many schools promote themselves in their materials by stating how many National Merit Scholars and Finalists are enrolled. Large institutional scholarships are given as a result of this program. This can be a huge opportunity for your family as well. If your children are like mine, they will not rise up and call you blessed in the midst of test preparation. God, however, has bountifully blessed us thus far through this program.

Mary Truitt is a home schooling mother of three in Cleburne. She and her husband, Kris, served on the board of JCLife (Johnson County support group) for six years. They began homeschooling for junior high and high school in 1995.

1 Editor’s note: While the decision about whether to allow home school students to participate is up to the school administrators, the College Board has issued a letter to the school districts strongly encouraging them to allow participation by all students and even suggesting that parents might appeal through channels of authority as high as the elected school board, based on the fact that the parents are taxpayers.

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Preparation is the key to doing well on the SAT. Students should start at least in ninth grade, or earlier if they are participating in a seventh grade talent search such as the Duke University TIP Talent Search. The PSAT is also written by the same SAT test makers and can count for huge scholarships in a student’s junior year but can be taken for practice in the ninth and tenth grade years. When students start preparing early, time is on their side. Waiting until later in high school usually results in more test anxiety and certainly less time to practice.

There are three sections on the SAT: Critical Reading, Math, and Writing. The test is three hours and forty-five minutes long and is offered seven times a year. There are no penalties for taking it as many times as students want, since colleges usually just take the highest scores and often will combine high scores from different tests, which can result in more college money.

The first section in the Critical Reading section is Passage-Based Reading. Most students abhor this part of the test. Often they must read four passages, work twenty-four questions, and do it all in only twenty-five minutes, which is about a minute per question, not counting the four passages. Besides that, the test makers have built in tricks to make the students pick the wrong answers. It is practically impossible for students to finish this section on time if it is approached in a typical way.

Usually, students read the entire passage, and sometimes more than once, which is a huge time waster. Once students identify the three question types and reorder them correctly, they can skip generally seventy percent of the passage and still get every answer correct. Speed reading is not the key to conquering the passages, but knowing where the answers are found is.

In this section students often second-guess themselves and change their answers to incorrect ones, something that is to be expected, since the test is designed to steer students into that trap. Since the test is standardized, it also means that the wrong answers follow the same wrong patterns, and when a student learns these patterns, he can keep from falling into the trap and missing the same question types again and again.

Another common problem in this section happens when a student overthinks a question by reading more into it or by over-analyzing each answer choice to try and make it fit. This method only leads to choosing a wrong answer. In addition, the questions seem to have more than one correct answer, which makes the test confusing. Therefore students think they must pick the best version of the answer. The truth is, each question only has one right answer, because the test is objective–not subjective.

There are also trick answer choices that appear to be correct but that actually contain one of four wrong hidden patterns. A goal on the passages is for the student to eliminate them first and be left with the one answer that does not break any of the rules. Once a student has determined and eliminated a wrong answer, he should not reread the passage again, since doing so can waste time.

Passage-Based Reading questions can be answered quickly and correctly once a student learns the recurring hidden patterns. It is not about how fast a student can read the passages but knowing how to distinguish the one right answer from the four wrong ones. Knowing this can cut passage reading time in half.

The second part of the Critical Reading section is Sentence Completion. In this section, students are given sentences that contain one or two blanks, and they must find the best word that fits inside the blank(s). Unfortunately, many students pick answers that sound good, but often those are trap answers. The secret to doing well is to understand the key elements that point to the answer, which are found inside the sentence. These are things like: scope words, strengthening words, and commas.

The goal is to predict the word that would fit into the blank and then find the word that is similar. Students also must be aware of trick answers that lure them; they should never choose an answer unless they are 100 percent sure it is correct. Often, words look like the perfect word, but in reality they have a different meaning.

Big vocabulary words often permeate this section, so having a vast word repertoire is a plus, but knowing how to figure out word definitions is more important. Sentence Completion questions can be mastered once a student learns that the sentence itself generally points him to the correct answer. Since students only have about a minute per question, it is crucial to eliminate the obvious wrong, tricky answers first and spend time only on the answers that are relevant to the question. Knowing how to approach the SAT accurately results in a better score, more confidence, and bigger scholarship money.

Editor’s note:

This article is the first in a three-part series. See the series in its entirety at http://collegeprepgenius.com/satprep/psat-prep-course-published-articles/how-to-ace-the-sat/ 

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