Step 4: Make a study schedule
Making an organized schedule for when and how much you are going to study is critical.Most people take the PSAT once their Sophomore year and sometimes even their Freshman year for practice. The PSAT only counts for National Merit qualification during your junior year.
For PSAT study scheduling, you can choose between two main formats. You can schedule either by time or by section. As always, make sure to schedule PSAT studying along with the rest of your activities, obligations, etc. since they will invariably conflict at times. It is a good idea to use time-based scheduling (example: 4 hours on Saturday, 1 Hour on Monday, 3 hours on Thursday, etc.) on your overall schedule, since that best allows you to see how many things you can accomplish in a day. However, it is also a good idea to make a separate schedule where you list what specifically you will accomplish in that time (for example: Practice Test on Saturday, review math on Monday, etc.).
[Click here to view general information on scheduling.]
What to put on the PSAT Schedule:
Read Instructional Sections
-Most books, especially the Official SAT Study Guide by CollegeBoard that PathAspire recommends have fairly solid instructional sections. These can usually be found starting from the beginning of the book. They will teach you the basics that you need to know for each section of the test.
-These sections will also contain a number of practice questions. Do them! Afterwards, the book will usually offer answer explanations and walk you through the thought process that you should have had in answering those questions.
Take Whole Practice Tests
-As we’ve said before, nothing will give you a better idea of the score you would get on the real test than a practice test. But even more importantly, practice tests give you practice. For most people, simply learning some general information will not be enough. You need to practice as many types of questions as you can, and that means taking lots and lots of practice tests. Also, simulate realistic testing conditions by making these tests timed and continuous with only a few short breaks between sections.
-Afterwards, review the questions you missed. This is one of the most helpful parts of taking practice tests. Redo every single question that you missed until you know why you missed it and why the right answer is what it is. This will not only improve your ability to do those types of questions in the future, but also your overall reasoning abilities.
Take Practice Sections
-Finally, for those times when you just can’t fit a whole practice test or for the one or two sections that you just need more work on, take practice sections. If you want to improve your Critical Reading, you can take a couple of critical reading sections from a practice test instead of the whole test. The downside to this is that taking apart whole tests means you’ll have less whole tests to take, so only take practice sections if you don’t plan to take all your available practice tests.
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