by Tien To
The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, or better known as the PSAT, is being held at FVHS on October 17th. It was sold at the Financial Office from September 24 to October 5 for twenty dollars.
The PSAT is held only once a year by College Board. Many juniors have already signed up.
“The PSAT is not a mandatory test; it’s a voluntary test, mostly for juniors,” said FVHS career specialist, Mrs. Wakeman, who helps students with their questions about college and tests like the SAT and ACT.
Even though the test makes most of its impact in junior year, when students will be eligible for the National Merit Scholarship, she encourages underclassmen to take the test for practice.
“We encourage very interested sophomores to take the test because there’s a direct result between scores on the PSAT and doing better on the actual SAT,” she said.
Students have signed up to take the PSAT for different reasons. Some students are prepping for the upcoming SAT that will be given later on this year; others are working toward their goals for getting into a good college.
“I’m going to take the PSAT because I want to have a gauge of how well I might do in the SAT, and I also want to find out what subjects I need to work on,” said Kevin Bui (’14).
Others took it for a chance at the National Merit scholarship, which awards thousands of dollars to finalists.
Jason Allison (’14) said, “I’m taking the PSAT because it is a great way to study and have practice for the real SAT and so that I can have the chance to become a National Merit scholar.”
Still, some harbor concerns about taking this preliminary SAT test and what the test will be like. Mrs. Wakeman strongly suggests to those who have bought the PSAT to use the given study guide and time themselves to prepare.
“I expect the PSAT to be very long and tiring. Knowing that it is approximately three hours long, I wouldn’t be surprised if my brain is dead afterwards,” commented Robin Nguyen (’15).
