Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Ceiling Effects of new PSAT/NMSQT

I think these changes can be explained by the simple fact that the ceiling is lower across the board. The ceiling on the verbal side dropped more. Interestingly, the new math is "harder" for younger kids in that it requires more classroom instruction time but it is easier in the sense that it is a question of just learning the material.The SAT us far more about achievement than aptitude at this point.

I don't think they dropped at the upper end - selection indices for the competitive states.

That is what I am hearing as well. If/when the SI rises to 224-226, it will be even more of a crapshoot to make NMSQT.

3 points can be exposure. Of course, the higher ceiling from 1440 to 1520 can translate to an increase of 12 points on the selection index (216 max vs. 228).

Thanks. Surprisingly (to us, anyway), our younger DS15 just took it as a sophomore (new school policy, where they now suggest it for sophomores), and he outscored DDs junior year score. Not that it matters as a sophomore, but we were a bit surprised as he is our stealth kid, not very interested in school academics and knew absolutely nothing about the test going in; on top of that he got a major nosebleed on the way out of the house and almost didn’t make it...lol.

But I agree with your assessment, the super-mathy kids here who are less interested (or less capable) in literature or humanities didn’t make the cut, which is a bit jarring, since they seem to be the kids garnering the most attention from the school district. I suspect this is probably because that subject matter (high school math) is just easier for them to measure and accelerate. I second your observation that the math is pretty straightforward, time management and avoiding silly mistakes seem to be the key, at least to me. The reading and writing section is thought to be more “tricky”- I suspect good classroom instruction and generally just lots of reading helped my kids in this area. (By good instruction I don’t mean test prep, which they thankfully don’t do here, but lots of close reading, annotations, literary analysis, etc, in English, but also history and other humanities areas.

I think the writing section is more tricky while the reading section is easier in most ways for many kids like mine. DS and DD took the old and new SAT back to back (Jan & March) in 7th grade and their reading and writing scores went up a decent amount on the new SAT. The vocabulary on the old SAT held DD back while the literary emphasis on the old SAT made DS' practice score extremely variable with his "real" Jan 2016 score coming in at the extreme low end of his range.