The PSAT Test

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
It is February already!  If your child is in 10th or 11th grade, he should have received his PSAT scores in January.  I forget who told me the scores were available; I do not think it was an email from the school.  But when I was told about the scores I asked my son who said, "Oh yeah," and then gave me a stack of papers.  If you have a child in 10th or 11th grade in the Plano ISD, you should ask your child for the PSAT results if you do not have them already.

What you have available for your review is far more than the scores.  You have you child's test books for both the PSAT/NMSQT and the ACT PLAN test (10th grade only), along with the details of your child's answers and the correct answers when your child got questions wrong.  You can review with your child the questions he or she got wrong, compare to the correct answers, and teach how to arrive at the correct answer.

Adolescents in the 15 to 16 year range are still children.  I do not think you can count on them to do this test analysis on their own, and if they did they might not understand how to achieve the correct response on the problems they got wrong.

The PSAT and PLAN tests are great opportunities to help your child.  You now have 8 months for corrective action before the PSAT arrives in October of the junior year of high school.  Students probably start taking the SAT in the Spring of their junior year to have scores ready for college applications in the Fall of their Senior year.  The time span between the sophomore and junior PSAT tests is when you have time to make big improvements.  This is your chance to help your child.

If you have friends or family with children in 10th grade, you might forward this message to them.

Robert