PSAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all these posts about excessive homework and studying. Granted, I have a sophomore and I understand junior year is more intense, but he is in all honors and AP classes at one of the top FCPS high schools, getting all As and I see him do maybe 30 minutes of homework/studying outside of school.

He’s not brilliant or anything and only normal-level organized. Why are so many kids spending so much time on class work (obviously taking out kids who have learning disabilities)?

My initial reaction is that it’s a great week to assign a test or some extra homework since they have Wednesday afternoon off! Surprised to see people complaining.

I have a sophomore taking all honors and 3 APs. She's normally a straight A student, but has a couple of A- right now. She has an extraordinary amount of work, because she has terrible teachers, and is essentially teaching herself the content in all her AP classes. Which means that she sits in classes for 7 hours a day trying to make sense of it all, then has to spend 3-4 hours at home self studying to actually understand the material, and then spends hours doing homework (she tries to read/study ahead, before going to class, but some of the teachers are so bad, they confuse the kids about materials they already know). Typically, she has something like 40 problems to do for two of her classes, and each one is due the next class. On top of that, she has her ECs too. All this is translating to essentially working non-stop until she goes to bed, including doing her work in the car.

This week is not terrible because she has extra hours to study on Wednesday. But there are two summatives, two formatives, and a writing assignment on Thursday/Friday. For one of the summatives, the teacher hasn't even taught the material yet, so I'm assuming there will be a short lecture, followed by testing on that material.

+1 you’ve just described us too. It’s horrible. I really wish admin would tell the teachers to lighten up with the constant formative assignments - they are so time consuming but worth nothing. And stop assigning 40 goddamn math problems due the next class - 20 is fine.

[Anonymous]

Can students still take a Saturday PSAT in FCPS or is only option now the ones given in schools during week? If can take on a Sat, from this thread seems like pro-tip (if can afford) to take on Sat and then have a “free” day during the school PSAR. Do any students do that?

[Anonymous]

How long before they find out the scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can students still take a Saturday PSAT in FCPS or is only option now the ones given in schools during week? If can take on a Sat, from this thread seems like pro-tip (if can afford) to take on Sat and then have a “free” day during the school PSAR. Do any students do that?

I love that idea but was unaware it was an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long before they find out the scores?

Early to mid November according to Google.

[Anonymous]

What is the PSAT being given tomorrow- the one for national merit? I saw online there is a psat 10 and psat 8/9… what are those? Who takes what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the PSAT being given tomorrow- the one for national merit? I saw online there is a psat 10 and psat 8/9… what are those? Who takes what?

They didn’t really explain it to us. Horrible communication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all these posts about excessive homework and studying. Granted, I have a sophomore and I understand junior year is more intense, but he is in all honors and AP classes at one of the top FCPS high schools, getting all As and I see him do maybe 30 minutes of homework/studying outside of school.

He’s not brilliant or anything and only normal-level organized. Why are so many kids spending so much time on class work (obviously taking out kids who have learning disabilities)?

My initial reaction is that it’s a great week to assign a test or some extra homework since they have Wednesday afternoon off! Surprised to see people complaining.

I think it’s very teacher dependent. My kid is at GCM, all honors. The class she has the most homework in is Spanish 3. Like insane amounts of work. More than any other class, including honors chem. Makes no sense.

Interesting! My son is in Spanish 3 also and has zero homework - it’s his easiest A.
Stinks that there is so much variety in teachers and class requirements, but I suppose that’s always been the case. We’re just more aware of it now because of forums like this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can students still take a Saturday PSAT in FCPS or is only option now the ones given in schools during week? If can take on a Sat, from this thread seems like pro-tip (if can afford) to take on Sat and then have a “free” day during the school PSAR. Do any students do that?

Then they can't do homework on Saturday? How does that help?

[Anonymous]

I will tell you what is ridiculous and that's that 9th Graders don't have school tomorrow because of this silly test. I don't understand why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will tell you what is ridiculous and that's that 9th Graders don't have school tomorrow because of this silly test. I don't understand why.

Every single staff member is proctoring the PSAT or SAT. There is no one to teach the freshman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will tell you what is ridiculous and that's that 9th Graders don't have school tomorrow because of this silly test. I don't understand why.

Are you stupid? They only want test takers in the building. They need a quiet environment for all. They don’t want loud immature freshman roaming the halls, transitioning between classes. That would be totally disruptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will tell you what is ridiculous and that's that 9th Graders don't have school tomorrow because of this silly test. I don't understand why.

Are you stupid? They only want test takers in the building. They need a quiet environment for all. They don’t want loud immature freshman roaming the halls, transitioning between classes. That would be totally disruptive.

Yours is not the answer. 21:35 is the answer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They're done at noon, right? Doesn't that give them an extra 3 hours to get stuff done Wednesday afternoon?

I don't love that a school day is lost for an exam that students can take on the weekend, but if they're going to lose a day let's keep it to one day, not multiple because the SAT is too stressful.

Have you seen kids after these tests? They are dead. PSAT and SAT are exhausting tests.

Then opt your kid out? Only 10th and 11th graders even take the PSAT today and some don’t even go. Everyone doesn’t take the SAT so this is pointless for them. Others have already taken it so they think there is no point to take a PSAT now.

But wait, your kid is going to be a NMSF…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all these posts about excessive homework and studying. Granted, I have a sophomore and I understand junior year is more intense, but he is in all honors and AP classes at one of the top FCPS high schools, getting all As and I see him do maybe 30 minutes of homework/studying outside of school.

He’s not brilliant or anything and only normal-level organized. Why are so many kids spending so much time on class work (obviously taking out kids who have learning disabilities)?

My initial reaction is that it’s a great week to assign a test or some extra homework since they have Wednesday afternoon off! Surprised to see people complaining.

I think it’s very teacher dependent. My kid is at GCM, all honors. The class she has the most homework in is Spanish 3. Like insane amounts of work. More than any other class, including honors chem. Makes no sense.

Interesting! My son is in Spanish 3 also and has zero homework - it’s his easiest A.
Stinks that there is so much variety in teachers and class requirements, but I suppose that’s always been the case. We’re just more aware of it now because of forums like this one.

My DS is at GCM, also in Spanish 3, and there's a quiz or a project at least once a week. I have a Junior.