Trebing Collegiate Consulting

On April 19, Parkway School District--along with the other Missouri public school districts--will administer a free ACT to their juniors. But did you know that if you attend private school, you are still entitled to the free administration?

If you live in Parkway, click here for more information. If you live in another school district, call your assigned public high school for more information on how to register for this test.

https://mo01931486.schoolwires.net/Page/2931

September scores are out! Congratulations to Connor B. and Katie B., who achieved their goal scores! Each earned a nice scholarship for their efforts!

Trebing Collegiate Consulting is not one of those "bad-faith test preparation companies" cited in the article that is using the leaked material.

No cheating here--just strategy, content, practice, and support! Call or email today to book for October PSAT and ACT and beyond!

'Massive' breach exposes hundreds of new SAT questions Breach comes as College Board faces increased pressure to improve security

Halloween is all about fun tricks and treats...but the December SAT and ACT are right around the corner and their tricks are no joke!

We have three openings left for December SAT and ACT mini-prep--get an overview of the test and help with 1 or 2 of the subject areas of the test plus a wrap up session the week of the test.

We also have a few spots left for full January SAT and February ACT prep, including a couple of the very popular Sunday time slots! This will be your last chance to take the "old" SAT before the re-formatted test starts in March.

Call or email today to get started!

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

0 Days To Go!

Today is test day! You're well-rested, well-fed, and you have the essentials for doing well on the test and feeling good about it! Good luck!

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

2 Days to Go! Get some sleep!

Have you ever, the night before a big event, gone to bed 2 hours early so you can get some extra sleep only to lay there counting sheep, playing with your phone, saying, "I should be sleeping. Why am I not sleeping?"

Or have you ever pulled an all-nighter on a paper or at a lock-in and the next day said, "That wasn't so bad!" and coasted through the rest of the day, only to get up the second day after the all-nighter and say, "Oh my Lord, I feel like I got ran over by a truck."

You need to apply the John Wooden* rule to your PSAT prep this week: Get good sleep tonight, and normal-to-good sleep tomorrow night. You won't wake up on Wednesday feeling like you got run over by a truck, and you won't be laying in bed tomorrow night, too worked up to sleep.

Finish your homework and get some rest! That's an order!

Got the 10 Day PSAT Success Challenge caught up. Check on our page for information about the Writing and Language Section of the PSAT, the gear you need to succeed, and how to leverage guessing to your advantage!

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

3 Days to Go! Guessing--educated and not-so-educated!

Increase Your Knowledge:
For YEARS we have told people, you can guess away on the ACT, but do not blindly guess on the PSAT and SAT. Only guess on the PSAT or SAT if you can eliminate at least one answer.

I am happy to inform you that College Board has eliminated the guessing penalty for the new PSAT and SAT. You will receive credit for correct answers and no credit for incorrect answers instead of losing points for incorrect answers.

Therefore, it is to your benefit to fill in an answer for each and every question on the test.

If you have the opportunity to read and consider the question, eliminate as many answers as possible to increase your chances of being correct, and then guess from what is left.

If you have no idea how to do a question (this happens the most often in math), don't waste time hoping for a miracle. Decide which letter will be your "guess answer" and fill it in every time and then keep moving.

If you run out of time on a section, use the last 30 seconds or so to fill in any question that you haven't answered with that same guess answer. I won't bore you with the math here, but trust me, it is more effective than drawing pictures or diagonal lines. :)

Having a plan for when you are not sure how to answer will help you stay calm and focus on the questions you can answer. You can decide on your guess letter now or see how you feel the morning of the test, but no matter what, make sure you have one!

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

4 Days to Go! What do you need to bring on test day?

Increase Your Knowledge:

Gather your equipment!

You will need:
Several #2 pencils
An approved calculator, and
A government- or school-issued ID. If you do not have a driver's license, permit, or non-driver's state identification, and you school does not have Student IDs, you will need a College Board Student ID form and that will need to be notarized.

If you want to keep track of time, wear a watch. Make sure that your watch does not make any noise (no alarms, no beeping at the top of the hour, etc) and is not wirelessly connected to any network. Leave your Gear watch or Apple Watch at home!

Check the batteries on your calculator. If you have never changed the batteries on your calculator or you can't remember when you changed the batteries on your calculator, consider putting in a fresh set.

You cannot have:
Any electronic devices on your desk. They will give you the option to turn them off and put them under your desk, but seriously, leave them at home. If they go off or someone thinks that you are recording something you will be asked to leave the test and your score will be cancelled. You will not be offered a makeup.

Any other school supplies or aids. Protactors, rulers, compasses, highlighters, ink pens, dictionaries, etc. are not allowed.

Food or drink. Of any kind. Not even bottled water unless you have a medical accommodation.

If you have any questions, check the link in the comments or ask us for more information!

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

5 Days to Go! The Writing and Language Section

Increase Your Knowledge:

Let's talk about the Writing and Language Section of the test. There is one section of Writing and Language. It is 44 questions and you have 35 minutes to complete it.

This test has several passages with questions related to the text of the passage. Some of the passages will also have charts or graphs attached to them and there will be questions about the interpretation of them as they relate to the text, but you will not be asked to do any math on this test.

There is a strong grammar component to this part of the test and all our old favorites are here: verb tense, parallel construction for nouns, verbs, and pronouns, comma and other punctuation use.

Your rhetorical skills will also be tested: you might have to decide on word or phrase choice, placement, addition or deletion.

Finally, you may be asked to analyze or refine an argument.

The pre-2015 PSAT/SAT was known for obscure grammar and tricky questions, and my personal opinion is that this new format is more straightforward and more aligned with what students are doing in school.

Apply Your Knowledge:

Dust off your downloaded test and try the Writing and Language section. Have someone else grade it and look for things that you are consistently missing. Ask an English teacher or your favorite grammar geek for help if you need it, or you can try Grammarly, or my favorite English website, the Online Writing Lab at Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu.

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

6 Days to Go!

We're going to take a break from the section previews tonight to talk about the test itself and the role it plays in the college admissions cycle.

The PSAT will NOT--repeat NOT--gain you admission to the college of your choice. Nor will it qualify you for Bright Flight in Missouri. So the big question is...

Why take the PSAT?

There are four main reasons high schools give the PSAT:

1) It serves as the official start to the college admissions season for juniors. Many juniors haven't started making college visits yet or really thinking about where they might like to go to college. The PSAT, early in junior year as opposed to later when many students take their first ACT, serves to focus their attention on the task at hand: they have roughly 18 months to pick schools; apply and be accepted, rejected, or deferred; and decide which school to attend. Waiting to focus until spring when the "real" standardized tests are most often taken would put even more pressure on the situation.

2) It really does function like a pre-SAT test. The formats are similar and the questions are the same format. It is a good way for students to get exposure to an SAT/ACT-like test without committing 3-and-a-half hours to it. Plus, students are not able to submit it to schools for scoring after the fact, so there is less pressure going in.

3) Taking the PSAT qualifies students for the National Merit Scholarship program; in fact, the NMSQT portion of the name of the test stands for National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. I'll feature more about the National Merit programs in their own post, so watch this spot.

4) If students authorize them to do so, PSAT will sign them up for their Student Search Service. Schools use the Student Search Service to specifically populate their mailing list. If a small Catholic liberal arts school in Minnesota is looking for more male students, they might buy a list of name of boys who attend Catholic HS in St. Louis who want to go to school more than 500 miles from home and are interested in studying liberal arts. On the minus side, it generates more postcards from schools you've never heard of than you can imagine. On the plus side, you may be contacted by a cool school you wouldn't otherwise have heard of. Decide what you want to do and let PSAT know if it's okay.

What you should take from this is that it's important, and worth giving your full effort on (because really, there isn't a lot you do that isn't worth your full effort) but is not a dealbreaker for you and college. Learn as much as you can over the next few days and give it your best shot! We're here to help you with the knowledge and confidence you need to succeed.

10 Day PSAT Success Challenge

7 Days to Go! The Math Section

Increase Your Knowledge:

The redesigned PSAT has two math sections--one of them allows you to use a calculator and one does not. The no calculator section comes first and has 17 questions and gives you 25 minutes to answer them. The calculator section has 31 questions and gives you 41 minutes to answer them. In each section there are multiple choice questions and there are grid-in questions in which you will calculate the answer and fill it into a grid instead of choosing from four options.

The PSAT will ask questions about number theory and arithmetic, pre-algebra, first and second year algebra, and geometry. New to the PSAT in 2015 are trigonometric ratios and questions involving radians. The test includes a number of questions that relate to data interpretation and will have at least one part where several questions are asked about one figure or data set.

There are still formulas that you need to know. PSAT and SAT are unlike ACT in that PSAT and SAT provide a number of useful formulas at the beginning of the section. You can refer to them throughout the test. If there are additional formulas you struggle to remember, write them down in that same area before you start working on the problems. It is easier to remember a troublesome formula before you need it than it is when a problem that uses that formula is staring you in the face.

The new subsections of the math section are called Heart of Algebra (really, that's what it's called), Problem Solving and Data Analysis, Passport to Advanced Math, and Additional Topics in M ath.

Apply Your Knowledge:
Complete the math sections of the downloaded test. Again, have someone else score it so that you can see which subsection is your strongest and where you have room to improve. Look over the questions you missed and College Board's explanations for the answers (available on the same page as the practice test) and see if you can figure out your mistakes. If you still have questions, send me a message!