Maximizing Your PSAT Prep with Khan Academy: A Comprehensive Guide
The PSAT is an important exam that serves as a practice run for the SAT and a gateway to National Merit Scholarships for high school juniors. Effective preparation is key to achieving a good score. Khan Academy, in partnership with the College Board, offers free resources to help students prepare for the PSAT. This article will guide you through utilizing Khan Academy's PSAT prep materials, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, and suggesting alternative resources to create a well-rounded study plan.
Getting Started with Khan Academy for PSAT Prep
To begin, create a Khan Academy account and select the subject you wish to study. If you don't have prior PSAT scores, you can still receive personalized study recommendations by taking diagnostic quizzes. Choose a quiz to start with. Upon completion, you'll receive immediate feedback on your performance, including which questions you answered correctly and a skill level assessment for each topic covered. A higher skill level indicates a better understanding of the concept. Skill Level 3 is assigned if you answer the majority of questions on a topic correctly, while Skill Level 2 is assigned if you answer the majority incorrectly.
As you review each topic, you'll engage in exercises designed to improve your skill level. These exercises include practice questions, videos, and timed quizzes.
Leveraging Khan Academy's Strengths
Khan Academy offers several advantages for PSAT preparation:
- Personalized Study Recommendations: Khan Academy's resources are best for students who are unsure how to begin their PSAT prep or don't know which areas they need to focus on. This can be particularly helpful for students who don’t know anything about test prep or feel overwhelmed by it.
- Targeted Practice: Khan Academy's resources are clearly organized by specific topic, you can easily use them to drill yourself on a particular skill or topic you want to strengthen.
- High-Quality Resources: When you’re preparing for the SAT, the more accurate your prep materials are, the more they’ll help you, and Khan Academy offers high-quality resources. Using official prep resources can be particularly helpful if you’re just beginning to study for the SAT and don’t have a solid knowledge of the test yet. Some lower-quality test companies provide prep materials that aren’t always an accurate representation of the SAT.
- Video Tutorials: If you’re struggling to understand a certain topic and reading explanations isn’t cutting it, then Khan Academy’s video tutorials may help you. Khan Academy is known for their videos, which break down problems step-by-step. For SAT prep, they have video tutorials for each topic the SAT tests. These videos typically range from 2-10 minutes long, and they involve Sal Khan (the founder of Khan Academy) working through each step of a sample problem.
Addressing Khan Academy's Shortcomings
While Khan Academy is a valuable resource, it has limitations:
Read also: Decoding the PSAT: Your Sophomore Year
- Lack of General Test Trends: Khan Academy explains how to answer specific questions in a very in-depth way, but they don’t include a lot of information on general trends of the test, such as which subjects the SAT has more questions on, ways the SAT can try and trick you, and patterns test makers follow when they develop questions.
- Limited Variety in Lesson Delivery: Khan Academy offers some high-quality video lessons, but there is very little variety in the way they cover information. Each video lesson consists of explaining an example problem.
- Unrealistic Testing Conditions: While Khan Academy does offer the eight official full-length practice tests that you can take in one sitting, most of the time you will only answer about 5-10 questions at a time. The real SAT is long, and if you only answer questions in short quizzes, you won’t know how you hold up during a 3-4 hour long exam. You may know all the content but get exhausted after 2 hours and make silly mistakes. A smaller, but still important issue, is that, unless you choose to print out the exams Khan Academy offers, you will be taking them online, which is not how you will take the actual SAT (which is always taken with pencil and paper).
Complementary Resources for Comprehensive PSAT Prep
To overcome Khan Academy's weaknesses, consider incorporating these alternative resources into your study plan:
- Non-Official Prep Resources: Look for non-official prep resources to get information on general test trends, strategies for tackling tricky questions, and patterns used by test makers.
- Additional Lessons: Supplement Khan Academy's resources with additional lessons from other sources to gain a more diverse understanding of the material.
- Full-Length Practice Tests on Paper: Take at least a few practice tests on paper, and take the entire test at once, under real test conditions. Practicing for the SAT under realistic test conditions is important because it helps you feel more prepared for the real exam and spot potential weaknesses, like time management issues, that you wouldn't have otherwise noticed if you weren't answering practice questions under conditions similar to those of the real exam.
Maximizing Your PSAT Prep Strategy
To make the most of your PSAT preparation, follow these tips:
- Establish a Baseline: While it may be tempting to start right away with video lessons or a few practice questions, the best way to start using Khan Academy is to give them a baseline of your strengths and weaknesses, either by uploading your PSAT scores or taking the diagnostic quizzes.
- Simulate Test Conditions: If you take the tests online, Khan Academy times each section of the practice exams to make them more realistic, but they also offer you the choice to stop after each section and review your answers. Therefore, you’ll want to use these practice exams carefully. Also, take them under official testing conditions.
- Utilize Additional Resources: As mentioned above, Khan Academy offers some high-quality resources, but there are some areas they’re not as strong in as others. Use other resources to learn about tricks of the SAT, identify patterns test makers use when developing questions, and to answer additional practice questions.
- Prioritize Official College Board Practice Tests: The College Board designs the official PSAT test. For that reason, PSAT practice tests created by the College Board provide the closest likeness to the actual test. Test-takers should prioritize taking official PSAT practice tests. Since the College Board only offers two current versions of the test, consider taking these practice exams at the beginning, midway point, or end of your studying. Note, however, that you’ll need to create an account to access the Khan Academy versions.
- Learn the Test Format: Understanding the PSAT test format can help boost your score and improve your pacing. The PSAT might be the practice version of the SAT, but the two exams differ in key ways. The PSAT asks slightly fewer questions (139 questions compared to 154 on the SAT) and takes 15 minutes less.
- Set a PSAT Target Score: A goal can help focus your PSAT prep. Consider taking a practice test before studying and setting a goal of 150-250 points higher. You can also aim to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship. The qualifying score depends on your state, but to become a semifinalist, you’ll typically need to score in the top 1% for your state. If you hit 1150, you’re in the 75th percentile. Still, you’ll typically need a score in the 99th percentile to qualify for scholarships.
- Review Your Mistakes: Use PSAT practice tests to improve your score. Go over your mistakes and identify questions where you guessed or felt unsure about your answer. Figure out what you did incorrectly and look for patterns in your mistakes.
Additional Free PSAT Practice Tests
Besides the College Board and Khan Academy, several other organizations offer free PSAT practice tests:
- Ivy Global: Ivy Global, an education consulting firm, provides test prep resources for multiple standardized tests. The site offers a free PSAT practice test, with the option to buy more tests. Ivy Global includes sample questions; practice quizzes for the SAT Reading, Writing and Language, and Math sections; and historical documents that frequently appear on the PSAT. Test-takers can review key sources like the Bill of Rights, the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Ivy Global site.
- The Princeton Review: One of the biggest names in test prep, The Princeton Review provides a free online PSAT practice test. To take this free practice test, you’ll need to sign up with The Princeton Review. The company also offers online prep classes, books, and private tutoring for the PSAT. The online PSAT classes come with live instruction and five full-length practice tests, all of which include detailed score reports. Test-takers can access resources for the SAT here as well.
- Mometrix: Mometrix offers study materials for more than 1,500 standardized tests, including the PSAT. Through the site, test-takers can access a PSAT practice test, along with focused Math, Reading, and Writing practice materials. Rather than a full-length test, Mometrix’s general PSAT practice test offers a shorter format to help students identify their weakest areas. You can also access a study guide for the PSAT and flashcards.
- Union Test Prep: Union Test Prep offers 150 free PSAT practice questions. The site breaks up the questions into different sections, including two Math sections, a Reading section, and a Writing and Language section. In addition to a PSAT practice test, Union Test Prep provides study tips and tricks to help test-takers improve their PSAT score. The site also offers information on alternative study methods and the best ways to simulate the testing experience in your study sessions.
Read also: Your Guide to PSAT Question Banks
Read also: ACT/SAT Scores from Your PSAT
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