Austin Scholar #37: What Your Kid Needs To Know To Crush the PSAT
& How I Prepped To Ace the PSAT This Week
Hey, y'all!
Every parent wants their kids to do well on the PSAT and the SAT.
Doing well on tests means you'll get into a good school. Getting into a good school means you'll start a good career. It's a big deal, right?
I've learned a bunch about crushing the PSAT and the SAT, and this week I'm going to share all of my favorite tips and hacks.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How I Prepped To Ace the PSAT This Week
What Your Kid Needs To Know To Crush the PSAT
Scholar’s Sources: The Best PSAT Study Guides
I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s new album on repeat this entire week and spent a lot of time thinking about her successes:
Taylor Swift is one of the most powerful women on Earth. Last week, she basically broke every single Spotify streaming record, had millions of TikToks created about her, and continued her conquest of colors, adding maroon and lavender to her collection.
I am just in awe of this absolute mastermind. She has been dominating conversations, magazines, and billboards since 2008. Everyone has something to learn from her. She’s a world expert on storytelling and writing, marketing and branding, and business and networking.
Regardless of whether you like her music or not, you should pay attention to Taylor Swift.
Austin’s Anecdote: How I Prepped To Ace the PSAT This Week
This past Tuesday, I took the PSAT.
But, since I go to a school without teachers, how do I study for such an important exam?
In this week's newsletter, I'm going to walk you through my test prep schedule (and my top tips for teens to help them study more effectively.
My real "test prep" starts one week before the official test date, when I take a practice test. (You can find practice tests for pretty much every subject online.)
I always try my best to emulate the real test conditions (time, accommodations, etc.) so I can get as accurate of a score as possible.
Then, the next day, I go over the test. This is the self-assessment thing I talked about last week.
The self-assessment is so insanely important. It gives me a clear picture of what I know and what I don't, so that I can best prepare myself to crush the test.
I go over every single question I got wrong and try to identify what happened. What made me get this question wrong? What parts of it do I not know? Where did I get stuck?
Even if I just misread a question, I add that concept to the "to study" list. Because mastery, as my classmate Hope Aboel-Nil so eloquently said, doesn't mean that you can get a question right. It means that you can't get it wrong.
After I finish my “to study” list, I'll have a clear map of what I need to cover during the week before the test.
Then, I take the concepts that I haven’t yet mastered and create a 3-day plan to watch videos, read articles, and do IXL and Khan Academy lessons to cover them.
Once I feel I have a deeper understanding of the topics, I create mnemonics.
Mnemonics are basically phrases, acronyms, or other systems that help you remember specific concepts.
For example, while I was doing Calculus, I could never remember which direction the second derivative parabolas faced. So, I found this catchy phrase to help me remember: up like a cup, down like a frown.
When combined with an image of smiles and frowns, I was able to ace all concavity questions.
You can find the image here.
Once the mnemonics are created and I've mastered everything that I didn't know on that first practice test, it's time to take another.
After the second test, I'll repeat the process if needed.
I basically try my best to de-sensitize myself to the scariness of the test. If I've taken the test a few times and I've learned everything that I got incorrect, the official test is basically just a Kahoot game where I already know all of the answers.
The day before the test, I watch a few full-subject review videos to make sure that I recognize every concept that’s on the test.
And of course, I eat good meals and try to get to bed as early as I can.
But, if, the night before, I'm super insanely stressed about the test and can't sleep, I catastrophize.
I know that sounds counter-intuitive, so let me explain.
I ask myself, What is the actual worst thing that could happen if I fail this test? and How could I fix it?
For example, the night before I took the PSAT, I recognized that the actual worst thing that could happen was that my test score doesn't meet the Texas requirements for the National Merit Scholarship Awards.
To fix it, I could use the Khan Academy SAT Prep course to improve my score and end up doing super well on the SAT.
And that's it. I've created the disaster scenario and found a way to move past it.
Going through this process really helps to put things into perspective. Although the test might feel like the most important thing in the entire world, there's something you can do to recover from a mistake.
It's a real "plan for the worst, hope for the best" mentality.
Right before the test, I spend a few minutes running through my mnemonics and reassuring myself that there is nothing else I can to do prepare–I've done all I can.
Of course, before I turn over my paper, I square breathe (in four, hold four, out four, hold four) and center myself with a mindfulness exercise (5-4-3-2-1).
I'm ready. Now, it's time to take the test.
What Your Kid Needs To Know To Crush the PSAT
If you want your kid to get a 1460+ on the PSAT, don’t tell them to learn Algebra II. Tell them to master 8th-grade math.
The PSAT (and SAT) aren’t designed for high-level mathematics and writing mechanics skills.
Really, they’re testing how well students understand the basics and how they can apply those concepts to a variety of problems.
If your kid can find the slope, read a graph, solve for x, and understand percentages in their sleep, they’ll do better on the PSAT than a kid who vaguely knows how to do those things but can also vaguely solve a matrix.
Remember Hope? She improved her PSAT score by 450 points because she went back and mastered 5th-grade math.
Studying for the PSAT (or the SAT or ACT!) doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to be deliberate.
If your kid is in the throes of test prep, send them these notes. (They help, I promise.)