On Wednesday, October 13, LRHS students took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, or PSAT/NMSQT.
The PSAT is a standardized test designed to challenge students in the fields of math, writing, and reading. Consisting of five sections and two short breaks, the PSAT took roughly three hours for students to complete.
“The PSAT was long in reality, but the time went by pretty fast because the sections themselves were only thirty minutes,” said Shayaan Sarfraz, sophomore.
Students faced reading comprehension problems, math problems and sentence structure problems. The majority of these were multiple choice questions along with eight or so short answer.
All sophomores had to take part in this test. Juniors were given the option of staying in their classroom during the PSAT or participating in it.
Sponsors offered the PSAT to students to prepare them for the Standardized Aptitude Test, or SAT, and to give the students the chance to compare their scores with their classmates. Juniors who took the test were able to enter a competition for scholarships from NMSC.
While the test-takers were filling out their answer sheets, the other students of LRHS were in their first period classes for three hours.
With the PSAT behind them, sophomores, juniors and seniors will face the SAT in upcoming months. “Those three hours of straight work should pay off when I take the SAT,” said Sarfraz.
