Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment PSAT 8/9

Hello,

Has anyone received Duke TIP PSAT 8/9 results? Thought they were due to be sent early March.

We just received ours today. If you haven't receive yours, I'm guessing you will tomorrow or Monday.

Just received ours as well. But no idea how to figure out how many answers my DD got correct/wrong. How does one convert from scaled score to raw score?

Another PSAT 8/9 question. I am trying to figure out if it makes sense to attempt the SAT yet. Is there a way of saying what score on PSAT would make sense to attempt the SAT?

NUMATS has something related to this on their website. For 5th and below, they recommend only the PSAT 8/9, although I suppose that might depend on what level of curriculm your DD is at. For 6th graders this year they had the following:
https://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/program/numats#details
Grade 6
First-Time Testers
If grade-level test
results* were: =90th-94th percentile
Should take: PSAT 8/9
If grade-level test
results* were: ≥95th percentile
May take: PSAT 8/9, SAT and/or ACT
Subsequent Testers
Considerations: EXPLORE scores in grade 5 were below 21 in reading and math AND below 19 in composite
Should take: PSAT 8/9
Considerations: EXPLORE scores in grade 5 were 21 or above in reading or math OR 19 or above in composite
Should take: SAT and/or ACT
*verbal/reading, mathematics or composite

Next year I would imagine their recommendation will include PSAT 8/9 scores for that determination instead of EXPLORE. (I have no idea what the equivalent of a 21 or 19 would be on the PSAT 8/9)

mama2three, thank you.

The interesting question is if you take PSAT 8th grade norms the 95th percentile will be (560 in Verbal and 540 for math). This would seem to indicate there is a lot of headroom to the max of 720. Or is this just 2-3 questions.

Also is there a way to norm these to lower grades?

12 raw score points separate a 540 math from the max score of 720. An average of 9 raw score points on each of the reading and writing sections (~18 points total) separate 560 and 720 verbal:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/psat-8-9-understanding-scores-fall-2016.pdf

Norming to lower grades would require a nationally-representative norm group of sufficient size, which is probably not a major interest of the College Board. I would imagine that Duke TIP is compiling norms based on their test-takers, which may be large enough to have some statistical power, but these will not be nationally-representative.

Oh, and the end of the document has a raw score to scaled score conversion, for those who wish to know this.

And one more thing: the PSAT scores (8/9 and 10/NMSQT) are now scaled continuously with the SAT. That is, the obtained score on the PSAT is an estimate of the expected SAT score if that student were to sit for the SATs now. That may help you make some decisions about SAT/ACTs.

aeh, thanks for the conversion. But this is what is unclear. If a 95th percentile at 8th grade still leaves 12 raw points open (over 1/4th) why would taking the full SAT makes sense? It seems like you are nowhere close to the ceiling. Even if you are at the 99th percentile it leaves over 9 points available.

Well, if you look at the raw score to scaled score conversion, you can see that the last half-dozen or so raw score points change the scaled score more rapidly than the middle twenty or so points do, which is a simple visual for the decrease in spread that happens at the extremes. A 560 is much closer to the middle of the curve on the SATs than it is on the PSATs, which typically means more fine-grained distinctions between one level of test performance and the next. This is similar to the discussion that frequently comes up around here about moving from the MAP primary (K-2) level to the MAP 2-5 level test in elementary school. Once you enter the upper 90s %iles on a test, a careless error or chance correct response can skew the apparent performance significantly. A test is most accurate when performance falls near the middle of its range.

But yes, for some students, the PSAT will give sufficient information during another round of testing to put off transitioning to the SATs a little longer. It depends on your child's needs, and what function the testing has for your family.

I get this in terms of MAP since in the late 90th percentile there seem to be no room and a lot of kids hit a raw score ceiling

But if I look at the PSAT design there seems to be a lot of room at the top (12 points for 95th percentile and 9 points for 99th percentile). Given that what additional information would the SAT provide if you are not at the 99+ percentile (<5 points away from the ceiling?)