By Jesse Payne-Johnson, Former Academic Director Ivy Bound Test
Prep and Aryeh Drager, Admissions Consultant and Tutor Ivy Bound
/ Rising Stars and Mark Greenstein, Founder and Lead Instructor
Ivy Bound / Rising Stars The acronyms PSAT and NMSQT stand for
Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and National Merit
Scholarship Qualifying Test respectively. Just to confuse us,
both these tests are actually the same test, but because the
test is used for two distinct purposes, the folks at the College
Board decided it needed two distinct names. So what exactly is
it? The test itself is composed of three parts: a reading
section, a math section, and a "writing skills" section. These
sections are then broken down further as follows: 1.) The
Critical Reading section is made up of two 25-minute parts
containing a total of 14 sentence completions, and 32 critical
reading questions. 2.) The Math section is made up of two
25-minute parts containing 40 regular multiple-choice questions
and 8 student-produced responses (or "