National Merit Scholarship Test Might Be Easier To Guess At This Year

High school students across Wisconsin are taking a new version of the PSAT this week.

This year’s test will be longer than before and multiple choice questions will have fewer options, meaning there will be a better chance of getting the answer right by guessing.

Many students don’t study for the PSAT, but Sonia Sabade, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she did prepare for it when she took it in high school. Her older sister told her about the National Merit Scholarship program that awards money to students who score high on the test.

“If they’re not directly contributing to your grade, I feel like a lot of kids won’t really take it that seriously,” Sabade said. “Without any kind of preface, people just didn’t take it seriously because not many people knew about the scholarship.”

About 3.5 million students take the PSAT each year, and up to 50,000 of those students get scores that qualify for an award. The program grants more than $3 million in scholarships annually.