Score improvement varies based on your starting point and effort, but students typically see 50-100+ point gains with focused, personalized instruction over several months. The key is identifying your specific weak areas—whether that's vocabulary, inference questions, or pacing—and targeting them systematically. A tutor can help you understand your error patterns and develop strategies that actually stick, rather than just drilling practice problems.

Timing is one of the biggest challenges students face—you have roughly 13-14 minutes per passage with 3-4 questions each. Expert tutors teach strategic approaches like previewing questions before reading, identifying key evidence quickly, and knowing when to skip difficult questions and return later. Practice with real PSAT sections under timed conditions helps you build the rhythm you need, and a tutor can adjust strategies based on whether you're a slow reader or a fast reader who makes careless mistakes.

Vocabulary matters less on the modern PSAT than it did years ago, but context clues and word relationships still appear regularly. Rather than memorizing lists, effective preparation focuses on understanding how words function in sentences and recognizing common prefixes, suffixes, and roots. A tutor can help you build vocabulary strategically by connecting new words to passages you're actually reading, making them stick better than flashcard memorization.

Most students benefit from taking 4-6 full-length practice tests spaced throughout their preparation, with at least 2-3 weeks between tests to allow time for learning and strategy adjustment. It's not just about the volume—it's about reviewing each test carefully to understand why you missed questions and what patterns emerge. A tutor helps you extract maximum learning from each practice test rather than just taking them blindly, turning practice into actual skill-building.

Inference questions require you to go beyond what's directly stated, which trips up many students because they either over-interpret or miss subtle clues in the text. The key is understanding that PSAT inferences are always grounded in evidence—you're not guessing or using outside knowledge. Tutors teach you to identify the specific lines that support each answer choice and eliminate options that require assumptions the passage doesn't support, building confidence in this question type through targeted practice.

Paired passages can feel overwhelming, but they follow a predictable structure: you'll read two related passages and answer questions about each individually, then questions comparing them. The strategy is to read the first passage, answer its questions, then read the second passage and answer its questions before tackling the comparison questions—this keeps information fresh in your mind. A tutor can show you how to annotate efficiently and identify the relationship between passages (agreement, disagreement, different perspectives) quickly, turning paired passages from your hardest section into a manageable part of your score.

Your first session focuses on understanding where you stand and what you need to work on. You'll likely take a diagnostic PSAT section or discuss your practice test results, and a tutor will ask about your reading habits, test anxiety level, and specific question types that give you trouble. From there, you'll develop a personalized plan targeting your biggest opportunities for improvement, whether that's building speed, mastering inference questions, or managing test anxiety—so you're not wasting time on skills you already have.