How much it counts on the test
Skills the test asks about more get more weight, but never so much that the others are crowded out.
How Flashy works
How Flashy adapts practice to your student.
Each day, Flashy chooses which PSAT or SAT skills your student practices and how hard the questions are. It weighs how much a skill counts on the test, how far your student has to go, how long since they practiced it, and how sure Flashy is of their level.
In short: practice goes where it helps most, at a level that is hard but doable, and every skill in the subjects your student practices keeps coming back. You set the daily time; Flashy does the choosing.
Flashy is free PSAT and SAT practice that adapts to each student. Each day’s practice, the Daily Session, is a few short sets of questions, one set per skill, with a step-by-step explanation after every question.
What decides each day’s skills.
Each day, Flashy looks at the skills in the subjects your student is practicing that day and weighs four things.
How far your student has to go
A skill moves up the list when your student is further below the test’s level on it, or has been missing questions there lately.
How long it has been
The longer since a skill was practiced, the more it is due. Every skill in a subject gets a turn when that subject comes up, and skills already at the test’s level still come back, just less often.
How sure Flashy is
When Flashy is still learning your student’s level on a skill, that skill gets more practice until the picture is clear.
You choose how long practice runs, from 5 to 120 minutes a day, and whether it covers both subjects every day, alternates days, or sticks to one. That time decides how many skills fit. Your student sees questions they haven’t answered before first, and skills are mixed through the day’s practice instead of one after another.
Each skill has its own level.
Every skill sits on a 7-level difficulty scale, the same scale for every test. Your student can be at level 5 in one skill and level 2 in another, and each is handled on its own.
- Flashy serves questions at your student’s level on that skill.
- Once they answer reliably there, it mixes in questions one level up. Doing well on those moves them up a level.
- A longer stretch of struggling at their level moves them down one. Flashy is slower to move a student down than up, so one bad day doesn’t undo their progress.
- Levels move one step at a time, and only through your student’s own answers.
Your first days
There is no entry test. Each skill starts at a starting level set for the test your student chose. In the first days, Flashy moves a level faster than usual, until your student’s own answers have earned it. Early on, the progress view also says Flashy is still getting to know your student.
If you’re the student: the first few days may feel too easy on some skills and too hard on others. That is Flashy finding your level, one skill at a time.
Hard, but doable.
Flashy sets each skill’s difficulty so your student gets most questions right, but not all: about 85 percent at their level. That is the middle of the green band on their progress chart. Below it, practice turns into guessing and frustration. Above it, they are mostly repeating what they already know.
After each day’s practice, your student sees how each skill went.
Stretching
The questions were hard for them today. That is part of the plan, not a failing mark.
In the zone
Right most of the time, but not every time. This is where Flashy aims to keep them.
Level up
They answered nearly all of these right.
Why that range.
Learning research finds that people learn most when practice is hard enough to produce some mistakes, but not so hard that they stop making progress (Bjork, 1994). One widely cited study puts the best rate at about 85 percent right (Wilson et al., 2019), and Flashy aims for about that rate. That study models learning in general, not test prep.
- Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–205). MIT Press.
- Wilson, R. C., Shenhav, A., Straccia, M., & Cohen, J. D. (2019). The Eighty Five Percent Rule for optimal learning. Nature Communications, 10, 4646.
After a missed question.
The step-by-step explanation comes right away. A question your student misses in the Daily Session also waits for them in Study with Spark for two weeks.
There, Spark, Flashy’s AI learning companion, goes over the question with them: it asks what they tried, then talks through where it went wrong. Then your student answers one more like it on their own.
The miss also counts in daily practice: a skill your student has been missing tends to come up sooner.
What you see as a parent.
Students see a simpler view of how each skill is going. As the parent, you see more.
Each skill against the goal
Every skill’s current level next to the level the test calls for, marked below, at, or past it. Open a skill to see its level over time.
Readiness for each subject
A percentage for Math and for Reading and Writing, where skills that count more on the test count more. 80% means your student’s skills are at the test’s level; the rest is room above it. It moves when a skill changes level, so flat weeks are normal.
A score estimate with a range
It moves a little with every answer. It is an estimate from practice, never an official score. Early on, Flashy tells you it is still getting to know your student.
What your student does in Flashy.
- 1Practices a few minutes a day
PSAT or SAT questions matched to their test. Difficulty adapts over time to their answers, skill by skill. You choose 5 to 120 minutes a day.
- 2Sees how to solve each one
A step-by-step explanation follows every question, so a mistake turns into something they understand.
- 3Studies with Spark when stuck
Spark, Flashy’s AI learning companion, goes over a question they missed or marked, explains an idea they never learned, or teaches a short lesson built from their gaps.
For example, after a missed question
Your student opens the question with Spark. Spark asks what they tried, then talks through where it went wrong, one step at a time. Then Spark gives them one more question like it, and they solve that one on their own.
What it costs
- Free: every feature, plus 30 minutes a month to Study with Spark.
- Plus, $69 a month per student: 4 hours a month to Study with Spark.
- Pro, $149 a month per student: 12 hours a month to Study with Spark.
Working through a missed question with Spark uses the plan’s monthly time to Study with Spark. Practice and step-by-step explanations stay open after it runs out, and the time refills the next month.
No credit card needed to start. See full pricing.
A sample Flashy question · Math · Linear functions
A monthly phone plan is modeled by a linear function D(g), where D(g) is the total monthly bill, in dollars, when the customer uses g gigabytes of data. A customer who uses 4 GB pays $52, and a customer who uses 9 GB pays $77. Which of the following defines D?
- D(g) = 5g + 52
- D(g) = 5g + 32
- D(g) = 25g + 32
- D(g) = 5g − 32
Answer: B
Step-by-step explanation
The slope is a = (77 − 52)/(9 − 4) = 25/5 = 5 dollars per GB. Using D(4) = 52: 52 = 5(4) + b, so b = 52 − 20 = 32. Therefore D(g) = 5g + 32.
Choice B is correct.
Choice A is incorrect — (D(g) = 5g + 52) uses the y-coordinate of the first data point as the y-intercept; the student wrote b = 52 because D(4) = 52, without subtracting 5 × 4 from it.
Choice C is incorrect — (D(g) = 25g + 32) reads the rise D(9) − D(4) = 25 as the slope without dividing by the run; the student computed the difference of the dollar amounts but forgot to divide by the difference of the GB inputs.
Choice D is incorrect — (D(g) = 5g − 32) flips the sign of the y-intercept; the student computed 52 − 5(4) = 32 but wrote the result with the wrong sign in the function rule.
Questions parents ask.
Does Flashy get harder after every right answer?
No. Each skill has its own level, and it moves up only after steady strong work at and just above that level. It moves down only after a longer struggle, and always one level at a time.
Why hasn’t my student’s readiness moved this week?
Readiness moves when a skill changes level, and a level changes only after steady work, so flat weeks are normal. The score estimate moves a little with every answer.
Is the score estimate an official score?
No. It is an estimate from practice, shown with a range, and never an official score. Use it alongside official practice tests in the College Board’s free Bluebook app.
How much time does practice take?
You choose 5 to 120 minutes a day, and whether your student does Math and Reading and Writing every day, on alternating days, or one subject only. Flashy fits the day’s skills into that time.
Ready when you are
Start free today.
Daily practice, explanations and progress are free for every student. Free also includes 30 minutes a month to Study with Spark, Flashy’s AI learning companion. No credit card needed.