I took the PSAT’s…again!
Well, the title of this post isn’t exactly true. I last took the PSAT test about 27 years ago. I guess I must have rocked it; as a result of my scores I qualified for a National Merit Scholarship (weird process, talk about privileging the already privileged!)
So when my 14 year old son came home from school with a booklet, “The Official Student’s Guide to the PSAT/NMSQT – with sample test enclosed.” My curiosity was piqued. Late at night I snuck downstairs and took the sample test. And, despite my abhorrence for and disdain of this type of high stakes standardized test, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed it – at least the math section. I liked puzzling out the solutions, in much the same way I can get into solving a crossword puzzle or a Sodoku. And I further enjoyed smirking to myself as I saw the hidden traps that the test designers had embedded into the questions and the multiple choice solutions, laying in wait for the student who carelessly misreads a question or misses a key phrase. Mean spirited perhaps, but kinda’ fun in a twisted way.
Then I got to the verbal portion of the test and my experience changed dramatically. I found that I was having to reread passages and