LOS ALAMITOS, CA — Every year, Los Alamitos High School presents students the opportunity to take a practice SAT. On Oct. 14, Los Al held its first-ever digital preliminary SAT, or PSAT, for sophomore and junior students. This appears to be a permanent change assigned by College Board, so details about the change are in order.
The PSAT is an optional practice test issued by the school through College Board to assist students for the actual SAT, another registered test issued by College Board. Mr. Platt, Los Al’s Assistant Principal of Curriculum, explained that it now seems that College Board is making the PSAT a digital test permanently.
In the eyes of most people, the change to the PSAT might seem inconsequential. After all, it doesn’t even affect the freshman and senior students here at Los Al, since they can’t take the test anyway. Still, the change could perhaps have a large impact on the students who intend to take the test in the future and those who took the test this year.
There are many benefits in regards to the digital PSAT. For example, the digital PSAT is much shorter than the original paper and pencil version. Los Al’s administration staff did not have any negative thoughts on the digital PSAT, only worries that unknown factors could affect the test, according to Mr. Platt.
“All of the proctors and I, we don’t know what we don’t know, so we went as prepared as we could be, not knowing what kind of glitches or problems we could have, and it ran really smoothly,” said Mr. Platt.
Los Al students who took the PSAT also voiced their thoughts on the digital test.
“I think it went smoothly. [The school] sent out a lot of emails, so I knew what to prepare for. When I got there, they had everything set up, so I just had to take the test,” said Jaya Eapen, a sophomore who took the PSAT.
This year, the PSAT was at maximum capacity for how many students registered. Whether it was because it was digital this year, or because students just wanted the practice, the amount of students who signed up for the test was much larger than the amount who registered for last year’s PSAT.
For Los Al, the new digital PSAT had no problems, technologically speaking. Whether the students did well on the test is a completely different matter, but the results have not yet been released. In any case, the PSAT will not be taking place again until next fall, and it will continue to be digital.
