About the PSAT
Over three million high school students take the Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) each year. Like the SAT, the PSAT is designed to measure the ability to understand and process elements of reading, writing, and mathematics. Students take the PSAT/NMSQT in their junior year to determine National Merit scholarship eligibility and to prepare for the SAT.
The College Board now also offers two PSAT variations: the PSAT 10 for sophmores, and the PSAT 8/9 for freshmen and eighth graders. These variations generate score reports that measure students’ college readiness and skillsets. While the PSAT 10 shares the same format as the PSAT/NMSQT, the PSAT 8/9 is shorter and features less complex content. Read more about the PSAT variations.
Test Format
The PSAT consists of the following sections:
| Section | Number of Questions | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Reading and Writing | 54 questions | 64 minutes |
| Math | 44 questions | 70 minutes |
The Reading and Writing section is divided into two 32-minute modules and the Math section is divided into two 35-minute modules. There is a 10-minute break between the Reading and Writing section and the Math section.
The sections of the PSAT are module-level adaptive, which means that performance on the first module of a section determines the difficulty of the second module. Each question on a particular module is weighted the same as every other question on that module. Different modules, however, may impact a student’s score differently. The better a student’s performance on the first module, the more difficult the second module of that section will be. The greater the overall difficulty of the questions, the greater the potential for a higher scaled score.
The Reading and Writing Section
The ability to read and write well are a critical skills, both in college and in the workforce. The Reading and Writing section is designed to test several components of reading and writing:
- Information and Ideas: these questions assess your ability to understand and analyze the central ideas, details, and evidence presented in a passage. You’ll be asked to make inferences, identify relationships between ideas, and summarize key points.
- Craft and Structure: These questions test your understanding of how an author uses language and structure to convey meaning and achieve a specific purpose. This includes analyzing word choice, tone, and rhetorical devices.
- Expression of Ideas: These questions assess your ability to revise and edit text to improve clarity, coherence, and effectiveness. This includes adding, deleting, or changing words, phrases, or sentences to enhance the flow and impact of the writing.
- Usage and mechanics: these questions test how well you can correct errors in sentence structure, usage, and punctuation.
The Math Section
The math sections measure a student’s ability to reason quantitatively, solve mathematical problems, and interpret data presented in graphical form. The math required for these sections is typically covered in the first three years of American high school education: Arithmetic, Algebra and Functions, Geometry, and Data Analysis.