PSAT Testing, is it worth it?

At Crete-Monee High School, freshman and sophomores have to take the PSAT twice a school year. Juniors take the SAT, and seniors get two days off of school.

During the testing, classes are not in session and they have to sit in a classroom with a small amount of students. The tests that they take are long. The students have to stay inside the school for at least four hours, and have about three five minute breaks. The testing time varies for each test. The middle school also takes PSAT testing for the 8th graders; 3-7 graders take PARCC.

There aren’t many things online to help you for PARCC or PSAT testing, unless your parents want to spend a lot on money for tutoring. They do have study tests and guides for the SATs, which does help, but is it really enough?

Before the students get the test, they have no idea what is going to be on the test. They don’t know what type of problems they’re asking, and most of the problems they’re asking, it’s from the beginning of the school year, which students don’t remember.

“ I think that PSAT testing is great, you get a day off from going to classes, and it monitors your progress so you get to see how much you’ve learned from the beginning of the year to the end,” says Anya Wallace.

PSAT testing monitors your progress and tests how much you’ve learned from the beginning of the year to the end. It knows how much you’ve learned from your classes, and what information you obtained from your teachers. PSAT testing is state testing that students are forced to take every year. It consists of one reading test, one writing test, and two math tests (one calculator and the other non-calculator).

Emily Stawicki put out her opinion of PSAT 8/9 testing, “I feel like it’s a good idea but they should have different levels to it, like I’m in honors math, so I should be taking an honors level test for math. Sometimes I feel like it is unnecessary though sometimes I feel like I’m being taught just for the test.”

The tests are difficult, and some things you don’t understand and it’s hard.

“So in my opinion, I think that the PSAT is a really good thing that our school does. It helps us students to see what the test is like and what we need to improve in and get us where we need to be for college,” says Matthew Simpson, a sophomore at CMHS. “So for me, I like taking that stuff very seriously and I think that everyone else should too.”