How to Interpret your PSAT Score Report
The College Board provides a sample PSAT score report, which is a helpful way to become familiar with the different components of your score. Each report begins with a cover page, including the student’s name, high school, and other identifying information. But the second page is where the real information begins..
Here, you’ll find three types of score, each of which zooms in on your performance in slightly greater detail. Following is the total score are two section scores, which range between 160 and 760: (1) Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and (2) Math. As with the SAT, the total score is calculated simply by adding the section scores.
Below the section scores are test scores, which further break down the Reading and Writing scores into their components. These range from 8 to 38. To calculate the section score, Reading and Writing scores are added and multiplied by 10. And because there is only one Test score for Math, this number is simply multiplied by 20.
It’s important to note that the College Board has structured the scoring so that PSAT scores share a “common scale” with the SAT. This means that a student who achieves a Math score of 530 on the PSAT would likely have achieved the same score on an SAT taken on that same day.
The score report also shows distinct percentiles for the overall score, section scores, and test scores. In each case, these indicate relative standing among students within a given grade level. This means that a junior who scored 530 in Math, placing them in the 69th percentile, scored as well or better than 69% of “a nationally representative” group of juniors.
The final page of the report is the most important for targeting areas for improvement. It will include:
Your answer and the correct answer
Correct vs. incorrect totals by section
Question difficulty level
This page can be used with the test questions tab in the score information available within your College Board portal. Within the test questions tab, you can navigate individual questions that you encountered on test day. Reviewing questions that you answered correctly as well as those you missed will allow you to develop an action plan for future test preparation.
In addition, pay attention to the following trends as you review your performance on individual questions:
Omitted answers often occur toward the end of a section, indicating an issue with time management, or – in the case of the Math Test, where later questions tend to be more difficult – omitted answers can indicate areas where your math knowledge is more limited.
Clusters of incorrect answers possibly indicate a misunderstanding, or – as sometimes happens with a paper test form – could indicate a case of misbubbling, where you might have accidentally filled in the wrong bubbles for several questions in a row.
Incorrect questions with an “easy” difficulty level tend to indicate question types or topics that merit more patience and closer attention on future tests, given that they represent the “easiest” points to gain.
The filters function is useful for identifying these trends. You can employ any combination of filters, but we recommend using “Incorrect Answers” + “Easy” to identify easy points that you can scoop up on future exams.
In the online report – which is more detailed than the summary score report – you’ll find a Score Details tab, which provides other information to help visualize performance. Here, you’ll find a total of nine categories of subscores. The Test Questions section of the Score Report lets you delve more deeply into the question types and their difficulty levels, as well as look at the actual questions from your test. This will allow you to develop an action plan for future test preparation, whether you plan on taking the SAT or ACT next. And if you’re currently in 9th or 10th grade, you’ll want to prepare specifically for the digital version of the PSAT, which will appear this fall.