Instilling Core Values with the Life Skill and Discipline of Math

Math appears content-oriented making students wonder "When Are We Ever Going To Use This Math?". However, the study of Math instills many core values such as perseverance, self-discipline, and excellence, while providing challenge and the opportunity for ‘flow’ experiences. Math is a life-skill that generates critical thinking, broadens career choice, and enhances performance in the classroom and in the workplace. Viewing Math through this lens can positively address the attitudinal aspects of teaching and learning Math helping to develop a life-long appreciation and confidence in quantitative reasoning.

Previewing a Real PSAT…$3 – can you go wrong?

Many students will benefit from seeing the format and content of the PSAT especially the grid-in questions on the Math section. They are $3 -- just got 10 of each for the 2008 administration (Wednesday and Saturday).

The two biggest surprises seem to be
1. “20 questions in only 25 minutes?”. High school courses may or may be preparatory in terms of content or time management.
2. The grid-in questions that are not multiple choice where the student writes the answer and bubbles it in on the test form.

Order of Difficulty
The Math questions are arranged in order of difficulty based on field testing. So #1 and 2 should be easy and by #17 they are challenging.

However, on the Math section with the grid-ins
(the first 8 questions are multiple choice and the last 10 are grid-in)
Questions 1-8 (multiple choice) swing through the Easy/Medium/Hard
and the first few grid-ins (they start at #9) start back at Easy
so do not spend too much time on questions 6 - 8.

Being familiar with PSAT format and timing will help students on Test Day (given only once a year in October) and oh, just make you smarter anyway ;)