A PSAT given for the first time in district high schools gave some the opportunity to get valuable experience, while others took the day off — costing the school thousands of lost ADA money.

The ultimate goal of taking a day off from classes was to provide a free practice test, hoping that students would have taken the opportunity to enhance their test taking skills and to improve their ability to do well on the actual test.

Many students attended the test day, but there were also a lot of absences. According to Alma Volk in attendance, a total of 497 seniors were absent on the day of the test, as well as 139 juniors, 67 sophomores, and 126 freshman. In total, 829 students were absent from school on the test day.

Because so many students did not attend school this day, the school lost $41,450. The school is given a certain amount of money per student that attends school each day. This money is called ADA money. ADA money is given to the school by the state of California.

There was a reason why so many student did not come to school that day.

“This is just a practice test and it seems like a little bit of a waste of time,” said Amanda Osborne. Amanda is a senior this year and has already taken many tests to get into the college of her choice. But for the senior class, they did not take the PSAT, they took the practice Saddleback matriculation test. Osborne is not going to Saddleback, as well as a large number of other seniors are not, so for them, this test was ineffective.

Seniors were the only class that took the Saddleback test, so the rest of the school took the PSAT. For all of the other classes, the PSAT portrayed itself to be valuable for the students who decided to stay.

“I am very glad that this school provided the PSAT because it gives everybody an opportunity to take it at no cost whatsoever,” said Maya Jackson. Some students believe that taking a practice test is important to help them for the real test and for further help in the future when applying to colleges.

Teachers were assigned a classroom to proctor during the test, but many of the them were notified of the PSAT only two weeks in advance.

For Mrs. Serio, before the test was given out, she said that “sculpting my curriculum around the PSAT is especially hard for me because I am about to lose a couple of my classes and I want to make sure that before they go see a new teacher that they are all set to go. It is important, however, that students have this opportunity.”

Students had the choice on how seriously they took this test. As Mrs. Serio said, when students hear the word ‘optional’, they hear that they don’t have to do it. In the end, it was up to the students on how much effort they put into this test.

For the students that didn’t come to school, many of them slept in, relax at home, went to the beach, and went to Disneyland.

But as for the students that stayed, many of them found it to be very effective.

“I had no idea what I was expecting to be on the real SAT, so taking the PSAT made me realize what I needed to learn and what I needed to know on the real SAT,” said Ashley Nannis. Nannis is a sophomore this year, and for a lot of tenth graders, they haven’t taken a real SAT test yet, so this practice was beneficial to their knowledge.

Many of the students who stayed were glad that they did because for some of the upperclassman, it was extra preparation for the upcoming tests they will have to take. They were glad that the school gave them this opportunity. It was also helpful for some of the underclassman to get a kick start into the information that they will need to know for when they have to take the test as well.