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PSAT to be held during school, students and faculty enraged
Credit: Angela Park
Olivia Waldron, Lucy Hughes, and Naomi Lathan share their three different approaches to studying for the SAT.
The College Board recently announced they are changing the way the PSAT will be administered. Instead of taking place on a Saturday morning, it will now be held on Oct. 14 during the first half of the school day.
“Our understanding is that the College Board has developed a new SAT for next year,” principal Allyson Mizoguchi said. “College Board wanted every student across the nation to have access to the practice SAT, and the only way they think they could’ve guaranteed that is if they required that the test is given during the school day.”
Not all students who wish to take the PSAT are able to come in on a Saturday. College Board has attempted to make it easier to take it by organizing it on a Wednesday.
The new PSAT date has affected both students and teachers at WHS.
“Administering [the PSAT] during the school day is probably more annoying than administering it on a Saturday,” WHS testing coordinator Edmund DeHoratius said. “From an organizational standpoint, it’s a lot harder. We have to switch classes out of rooms and put kids who are testing in those rooms, things we don’t have to deal with for Saturday administration.”
Mizoguchi is upset about the change in date due to the disruption it will cause.
“I am incredibly enraged actually because it is a terrible disruption to the entire school day. We have students who will basically be sequestered taking the PSATs between about 7:30 in the morning until around noon,” Mizoguchi said. “There are about 150 juniors and 50 sophomores signed up for this test, and they will be missing four to five classes. In terms of whether classes will be held or not, it’s kind of at the teachers’ discretion.”
Junior Carmen Mei said she would prefer to take the PSAT on a Saturday, if given the choice.
“It sort of bothers me because I don’t like how it’s gonna be in the middle of the school day when after that, I’m going to have to go to all my classes and try to catch up,” Mei said.
Sophomore Tommy Simon agrees with Mei. According to Simon, he is angry he has to take the PSAT during the day because he will miss a valuable math class where the students will be reviewing for a test the following day.
He believes having the PSAT during school does not benefit him in any way.
“If anything it hurts me,” Simon said. “It hurts my education.”
The new and redesigned SAT will be released March 2016.
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Masha Yakhkind is the pop culture editor of WSPN. Outside of school, Masha is a competitive dancer and competes all around the world. She also enjoys listening...
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