Each year, over 3.5 million high school students take the PSAT. This year all students who wished to partake in this test took it Wednesday October 14. The methods that students have for studying vary from doing nothing to using all possible resources.

“I studied for the PSAT by doing several practice tests online and in the book.  It was really important to me that I got some practice in because they re-designed the test and I wanted to be able to navigate it before test day. I studied a lot, actually,” junior Auriann Sehi said.

Other students had different methods in studying. “I just did the practice test that the counselors gave out. I probably spent 2 hours on it total,” Tiger Chen a junior at CHS said.

Another element of the PSAT exam is the effect that studying for the test has on school and student’s performance on their work. “Preparing for the PSAT was pretty difficult because my weekdays were always packed. [. . .] Most days I put off my PSAT studying and I ended up doing most of my practice over the weekends. I don’t think it negatively impacted or positively impacted my schoolwork, just my outlook on school,” Sehi said.

For some students the test didn’t impact their work during the week, but outside of school was where the stress arrose.

“Before taking the PSAT, I was really nervous because I didn’t like the old version last year and I wasn’t sure what the new version would be like. I had learned last spring the new changes to the PSAT and SAT, and upon hearing them, I was really nervous because I felt like this year, we would be the ‘guinea pigs’ in the nation’s standardized test-taking process,” Sehi said.

This year was hard for students because they, “heard from the counselors that the test is way different than the previous year’s one and that it looks more like the new SAT format,” Chen said.

“I still think that standardized testing is pointless, but I enjoyed taking the PSAT because it is very similar to the ACT now. [. . .] However, I don’t think that Clayton should adopt the teach-to-the-test model that so many other schools do because it limits the curriculum, and frankly, wastes our time,” Sehi said.