Last Updated On: January 4th, 2024
If you took the PSAT this past fall or you’re preparing for the new Digital SAT, you’ve probably spent some time on the College Board’s Bluebook app. Recently, there were some changes to the app and its scoring, along with the addition of a question bank that will be very helpful for those preparing for the test.
First, the College Board has separated the websites where students receive their official scores and their practice tests. Now, MySAT will only show official SAT and PSAT results. Practice test results can be found at mypractice.collegeboard.org. If you’re accessing your practice test results from the app, you might not notice the change. Just like before, you click on your practice test, it takes you to a website to log into your College Board account, and then you view your results. If you look on that same website for official PSAT or SAT results, though, it might look like they’ve disappeared when your practice tests have actually moved to a different site.
Next, the scoring on Bluebook at the lower end of the curve has changed, getting more forgiving at the low end of the math curve and stricter at the low end of the verbal curve. If you’re scoring in the high ranges, you probably won’t notice any difference, but the changes show that the College Board might still be tweaking their scoring for the Digital SAT. As more students start to take the real tests in the spring, there might be more scoring adjustments. Therefore, students can use the Bluebook practice tests as a rough estimate of how they might score on the actual test, but they shouldn’t be surprised if their actual scores are different. Students should also be prepared for harder questions than what they find on the existing practice tests, as some students who have already taken the real test have reported.
The College Board has also released a helpful preparation tool: an extensive, free question bank. To access it, go to the dashboard at mypractice.collegeboard.org. Then, scroll down past your practice test results to “More Resources” and click on “Student Question Bank.” This resource provides a wealth of questions that can be sorted by topic and difficulty level. Clicking on the question reveals the answer alongside it, but you can choose to export a selection of questions to a PDF file without the answers and then check your answers and their explanations after trying the questions yourself. This question bank allows test takers to create sets with all “Difficult” questions, which can be very valuable for those aiming for a high score. (It can also create sets with all Easy, all Medium, or a mix of difficulty levels.) There’s also an Educator Question Bank that’s accessible without a login.
If you find it challenging to navigate and understand the resources on your own, a tutor can help you make a personalized preparation plan to maximize your score in a smart and efficient way.
