Barron's Strategies and Practice for the NEW PSAT/NMSQT (Barron's Strategies and Practice for the PSAT/NMSQT)

This psat/nmsqt book is a must for those wishing to score highly on the psat/nmsqt. It is updated to ensure that it follows the standards for the new version of the test, not the old one. The book has information about the psat, like the format, the difference between the old and the new, what to do before the test, and much more.The book itself contains 2 practice tests and practice sections for writing and language, reading, and math. The practice tests are high quality questions with detailed explanations on the answer. if you didnt understand how to solve a problem, you could figure it out by looking at the answer key. the 3 practice sections consist of tips and practice problems. The tips in each section are helpful, as they are basically tips and tricks to solving psat questions. For the practice problems, the reading and writing sections are where you read a passage, and you answer questions with the answer key with explanations right after. The math section is a little different, and is split into 4 sections-heart of algebra, problem solving and data analysis, passport to advanced math, and additional topics in math. each of the sections has questions pertaining to the topic, such as heart of algebra, and answer keys.This is a great book for studying, and is a valuable tool. however, i personally dont think it is enough practice, and would consider either purchasing different books, or searching up practice problems and tests online.

I have been a college professor (Engineering) and an AP (Physics & Calculus) high school instructor and do ACT/SAT tutoring as a service in my community. I used Mr. Stewart's ACT Test Prep book for over 200 students last year and had many significant student improvements in the ACT. I have reviewed the new PSAT for use this coming year and I think the test questions are quite appropriate and require critical thinking and analysis, especially in the math problems. Mr. Stewart has the ability to write probing questions and his review sections are succinct and easy to process. Given the PSAT is going to be used as a college-readiness metric for many school systems, this new work by Mr. Stewart will give the college-bound student every chance to maximize his or her potential. Also, those students who aspire to compete in the National Merit program will find this book invaluable in achieving at the highest levels.

I liked this book for PSAT review, and my thoughts on each section are as follows:The writing section was especially good for going over each facet of grammar that is going to be tested on the new PSAT. However, be aware that this is a "catch all" type of book, and by that I mean that although the writing section does list a lot of rules that one should be aware of, it by no means offers a thorough and comprehensive publication of each grammar subject. For example, it will list a writing topic to work on and then will list one rule and one example. Then it will go over a few more related writing topics and cumulatively test your understanding with a 10 question fill in the blank practice section. However, these fill in the blank sections do not tell you to which topic the error corresponds to, it will simply tell you the corrected sentence, which is not very useful for someone looking to target specific areas of weakness.The reading section was okay. The book offers the pretty straightforward structure of going over each type of passage (history/reading/etc) once, and then having a student go through the problem set. However, the answer explanations seemed to be pretty intuitive and didn't really offer any insight on how to be super successful at the reading section other than providing some practice.The math section was good. It covered the new data/statistics portion that will be tested on the PSAT, and it offers more in depth explanations than the writing section on each topic. There are also step by step solutions, which I found to be helpful.All in all, if you are looking to buy one general book to briefly review everything on the PSAT, then this would be it.

Where the workout book provided by Princeton Review is topic based drill on 300 questions with sample tests for each section, this book from Barron's, also a quality test prep publisher, focuses on helping the student prepare for the TEST and how to take it. There are not only drill questions, but COMPLETE PSAT tests you can take to get the feel of it. The focus in this book is not just material mastery, but strategies and tips to help you navigate the test with understanding and how you can best use your time and approach to take it successfully.Very worthwhile. And this is for the "NEW" PSAT and the national merit scholarship qualifying test.

I used this book to study for the PSAT about 3 weeks before the test. It's pretty average, actually. I remember about a week before the test I just took practice tests of the redesigned SAT on the CollegeBoard website, since the new PSAT is like the new SAT except the SAT is more difficult, and I wanted to prepare with harder problems. I got a 1490 out of 1520, perfect score of 760 on the math section. This book helped familiarize me with the format of the test, such as the kinds of passages and the timing of the sections, and the practice tests were decent, but I think taking the redesigned SAT practice tests had a bigger effect on my score.

Bought this for PSAT prep for my son. I looked thru a few other guides and reviews and decided this was what I was looking for. It did a good job of covering the test subjects. My son is not a great tester so I needed one that did a good job of breaking everything down. What I liked about this one is it gave examples for each subject and how test is laid out and pointers. It then tested and finally provided answers and explanations. Very detailed. My son's scores went up 200 pts from practice test given in class!