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 The PSAT
The Verbal section of your PSAT was divided into three types of questions:
analogies, sentence completions and critical reading. You were given two
25-minute periods to complete this section.
The Math section was divided into three types of questions: standard
multiple choice, quantitative comparison, and student produced
reponse (fill-in) questions. You were given two 25-minute periods to
complete this section.
The Writing section included three elements: sentence error identification,
sentence improvement, and paragraph improvement. You were given 30 minutes
to complete this section.
There are four pages to your PSAT Score Report. The first page (the PSAT
Student Performance Report Summary) presents an overview of your scores and
a comparison of your scores with those of other Academic Talent Search
students at your grade level who also took the PSAT this year. Please note
that the Estimated SAT I Scores refer to math, verbal and total (not to
writing). The other three pages focus on your scores in each of the test
areas. The Math report is on the second page; the Verbal is on the third
page; and the Writing report, which is part of the Verbal report, is on the
fourth page.
The Math page of the PSAT Score Report has four categories: arithmetic,
no algebra, geometry, and et cetera. Your algebra scores appear under
no algebra. The et cetera category refers to the 11 questions on the PSAT
that did not fit into the other three math categories.
The score report's two Verbal pages are composed of six categories:
Analogies, Crit. Reading, Sent. Comp., ID Error, Sentences, and Paragraphs.
The "Corr" line gives the letters of the correct answers to the test.
These are displayed in groups of 10 (1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 31.40).
The "You" line below "Corr" shows the letters of the answers you
chose when you took the test. A plus sign ("+") indicates that you
answered the question correctly. A minus sign ("-") indicates that you
left the answer blank. A letter instead of the "+" on the "You" line
means that the test answer you chose was incorrect. The letter in this
case is the letter you gave as the answer to that question.
In the example below, the correct answer to question #1 is "A" and the
"+" below the "A" indicates that the test-taker answered question #1
correctly.
For question #2, the correct answer is "C," but the test-taker responded
incorrectly with "A." The "-" on the "You" line for question #3 indicates
that the test-taker did not answer that question; it also shows that the
correct answer was "D". The letters on the "Cats" line correspond to the
letters of the subsections in the Category section. These letters appear
immediately below the "Corr" and the "You" lines. Grid-In's for Section 4 (Mathematics)
This section exists only on the Mathematics page of your report. The
numbered items 33-40 provide the correct answers to the grid-in.
Backsolving: Using the answer choices to help you solve the
problem. For some lengthy word problems, it is easier to plug the
answer choices directly into the question than it is to solve the
problem algebraically.
Ballparking: Estimating values from the given figures.
Bite-sized pieces: Long word problems should be read a little bit
at a time, or they become overwhelming.
Clue: The clue is the key word in the fill-in-the-blank sentence that
indicates the correct answer.
CR: Critical Reading
Hit Parade: A list of the 250 most popular words used on the SAT.
ID Error/Error ID: A test item in the Writing section that requires
you to identify the mistake in a sentence.
Idiom: The correct use of prepositions in sentences. E.g., I am
crazy you. (about)
Jo Bloggs: The name for a fictitious test-taker who makes the
obvious mistake on difficult questions.
Line Ref/Lead Words: The questions that sent you to a specific
part of the Critical Reading passage (i.e., "in line 45")
Manipulating Equations: A simple algebraic step involving working
both sides of a standard equation equally and simultaneously.
Misplaced Modifier: A lack of agreement between the subject and its
modifier. In the sentence, "Malaria is often a threat when traveling in
foreign countries," it is unclear as to what or who is doing the traveling -
you or the malaria.
Parallelism Error: An inconsistency among parts of a sentence or
paragraph. E.g., "I like running, jumping, and to take tests" is a
parallelism error because all three terms ("running," "jumping," and "to
take") are not in the same format.
Plugging In: Replacing variables with numbers
POE: Process of eliminating poor answer choices
Proportions: A relation between two events mathematically. E.g.,
"If you can eat two apples in 30 minutes, how many apples could you eat
in one hour?"
QC/Quant. Comp.: Quantitative Comparison - the part of the PSAT M
section where you are asked to compare one quantity to another.
R = "right" as in "answered correctly"
Ratio Box: A math technique where you draw a table that
demonstrates the part:part:whole aspect of dealing with ratios.
Relation between the Blanks: A sentence-completion approach where
one of the blanks will clue you in to the other blank.
Same direction trigger: A word that keeps a sentence going in
a similar direction (i.e., "and")
SC: Sentence Completion
Sentence Fragment: An incomplete sentence
Trigger Words: Words that change the direction of the sentence;
e.g., "but," "yet," "unless."
Two-blank sentences: Sentence completion which requires that you
fill in two missing words.
The Weird One: In a hard sentence completion, often the most
difficult and bizarre answer choices are correct. Easy questions tend to
have easy answers; difficult questions often have difficult answers.
Wordy Arithmetic: A word problem that requires you to use
arithmetic to find the solution.
Working Back: Describes the process of going back and forth between
the answer choices and the question.
Write-it-out: On certain repeating pattern problems, the best
choice is to write out the entire pattern in order to arrive at the
answer.
If you have questions regarding your PSAT Score Report, please contact James Waldron at (949) 824-7846, or email at jwaldron@uci.edu. |