The SAT and other College Board tests are offered several times a year.  Most students take the SAT for the first time during the spring of their junior year and a second time during the fall of their senior year.  For more information on the SAT exam, click here.

The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) is a program cosponsored by the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC).  It is a standardized test that provides firsthand practice for the SAT.  To enter the competition for scholarships from NMSC, students typically take the PSAT in the 11th grade.  NMSC scholarship programs allow you to gain access to college and career planning tools.  

The curriculum covers mathematics, critical reading and writing.

Mathematics Section
70 minutes of math; two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section
Multiple choice questions where you select the answer from five choices
Grid-in questions where you provide the answer in a small grid
Additional algebra concepts
Additional topics in data analysis and statistics
Additional geometry and measurement concepts

Critical Reading Section
Sentence completions (critical reading at the sentence level)
Paragraph-length critical reading
Paired-paragraph critical reading
Long-passage critical reading
Paired-long-passage critical reading

Writing Section
Contents very similar to that of the (now obsolete) SAT II Writing Test
A 25-minute essay
49 multiple-choice questions on standard English grammar and usage that include identifying sentence errors, improving sentences and improving paragraphs.