PSAT

Princeton South Asian Theatrics: a small theatre group at Princeton University in New Jersey. Founded in 1999. More or less, they explore issues affecting second-generation South Asians (East Indians in particular) faced with growing up in the Western world.
The name reflects East Asian parents' obsession with standardized test scores as a measure of their child's academic prowess and consequent self-worth.

Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test. ETS, the Educational Testing Service, changed the name from "aptitude", for unknown reasons. Also goes hand-in-hand with the NMSQT, for scholarships.

Although not required to graduate/apply for college, a bunch of high schools offer it, some in New York make it mandatory. Part of it is to show off how smart the students in the district are "We have a mean score of 1100 for our students..."

The questions are identical to what you see on an SAT, only the test here is much shorter, about half as long. There are 4 sections, in this order: Verbal, math, verbal, math, Grammar.

Grammar is somewhat new, as it was discovered that women did poorer on the SAT's because of more math less verbal, so the Grammar section was reintroduced, but not on the regular SAT. Old-timers may remember the section as the TSWE where there's a sentence, and you find the error. It's now confined to the PSAT and SAT II subject test: Writing.

Instead of a verbal and math score, which is multiplied out to simulate a real SAT score, you also get a Writing skills score for the last section. Numerous scholarhips are awarded based on how you do, and a certain score qualifies for a National Merit Scholarship. The score makes you a semi-finalist, but it has to be high, something at least 1400 combined, AFAIK. Great to have on your transcript, as well as the scholarships.

The PSAT (Pre-SAT) is a test that is sponsored by Collegeboard and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Usually this test is taken in mid-October by Juniors in high school, but Sophomores are able to take it as well.

There are two main reasons to take the PSAT:
1. To practice for the SAT, which has similar math, reading, and writing sections. It will also give you a rough estimate of what you could potentially get on the SAT.
2. To qualify for scholarships, especially the National Merit Scholarship Program. *note, only Juniors taking the PSAT in their third year of high school are able to qualify for National Merit scholarships.

The test is 2 hours and 10 minutes long and consists of 5 sections:
Sections 1 and 3 are Critical Reading, have a 25 minute time limit, and consist of 13 sentence completion questions and 35 reading comprehension questions.
Sections 2 and 4 are Math, again 25 minutes each, and consist of 28 regular multiple choice math questions, and 10 grid-in questions.
Section 5 is Writing, is 30 minutes long, and contains 14 identifying sentence errors, 20 improving sentences, and 5 improving paragraphs questions.

Scoring 1 pt for correct answers
0 pt for unanswered questions
0 pt for incorrect grid-in answers
-1/4 pt for incorrect answers

The math, reading, and writing sections are then converted into 3 separate raw scores ( # correct – (.25 x # incorrect)). These scores are then converted to scaled scores between 20 and 80 (80 being a perfect score). *note, these scaled scores change from year to year, based on the performance of students taking the PSAT
The index score is then the total of all 3 scaled scores. A perfect score is 240, but the average selection index is roughly a 147.

With all of this in mind, it is important to mention that the PSAT can in no way hurt you. I mean this is two ways. First of all, this is not a difficult test, and is certainly not something that anyone should stress out about. And second, PSAT scores are not sent to colleges, and so therefore a bad PSAT score will not have a negative affect on future college admissions.