PSAT Practice Test preparation Guideline

PSAT refers to Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and is the basic and qualifying test prior to the NMSP (National Merit Scholarship Program). PSAT is the evaluation test to check the intellectual ability and is skills based examination rather than knowledge based examination and is one of its own kinds. The examination is very typical and commences once in every year in October period. It is a logical thinking test that will evaluate your skills that you have learnt so far in your school and academic career. It is a standardized examination for preparation of the SAT examination and has the same format as the SAT examination. You must not take the examination lightly and must prepare for the test thoroughly and with full concentration. The PSAT test practice can be done by making useful and rationally thought strategies and preparation through solving various sample papers.

Here are some key points about the PSAT test that you must keep in mind while preparing for the test:-
•    The test is held only once in a year so you cannot afford to waste any opportunity.
•    Do not attempt the test without proper and effective preparation of the test.
•    The test has no passing criteria. Remember it is test for aimed at providing admission in various schools. Hence it depends solely on the school for deciding its admission criteria. You must consult the particular school to know its cut-off average scores.
•    The test comprises of five sections- two sections of 25 min verbal testing, two sections of 25 min mathematics testing and one 30 min section of writing test.
•    The test duration is 2 hours and 10 minutes and you need to capitalize on the full course time so that you can effectively utilize the time window for the examination.

The exam pattern has not been changing much from many past years so you can easily get your hands on some practice papers and solve them to check your preparation and knowledge of the various sections. You must read the test carefully especially the passages and mark the key points so that you can understand the tone of the writer and capture the point that the author is conveying. Newspaper reading, magazines and novels will help you in improving your vocabulary and verbal tactics. Math Section is very much significant and you will need to remember and keep in mind various basic formulas of addition, subtraction, algebra of prime numbers etc to crack the test. The practice tests will help you in developing good and rational strategies for solving the paper and you will surely gain confidence after you have tested your knowledge by solving the practice papers. The Writing section is very important as it will test your writing and language skills so you must learn to write using a wide vocabulary and learn the context of usage of the words for the proper sentence formation. There are many manuals and books also available in the market that will help you in preparation of the PSAT test. You can also apply for the online practice tests to test and check your knowledge and understand the exam pattern and question format.