IAAT - 91% calculations

[Anonymous]

Hello All,
Was wondering how the 91% is calculated ?. So out of 60 questions how many questions needs to be correct or how many incorrect answers can be ? . Heard that its calculated with some kind of comparison with other kids performance in the same class. so was confused with the calculations . Please share information on it .

[Anonymous]

FCPS doesn’t give the score breakdown, only percentile. My oldest scored 98th percentile and has always been a very solid math student, he also did a few practice exams. My youngest scored 99th percentile, he said that he had to guess 2 of the problems because he ran out of time. Based on feedback from his teacher I don’t think he got every answer correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Hello All,
Was wondering how the 91% is calculated ?. So out of 60 questions how many questions needs to be correct or how many incorrect answers can be ? . Heard that its calculated with some kind of comparison with other kids performance in the same class. so was confused with the calculations . Please share information on it .

It's not based on performance of kids in the same class. It's based on national norms. So, if they had 10000 kids in the national norming group, your child would need have a score equal to or higher than the 900th best score to have a percentile rank >= 91%. The norming group isn't filled with advanced kids or kids in pre-algebra. It's just filled with a regular cross section of kids at that grade level.

In FCPS, way more than 9% of the kids taking the IAAT will meet the 91st percentile benchmark because they're only testing the kids in AAP/advanced math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS doesn’t give the score breakdown, only percentile. My oldest scored 98th percentile and has always been a very solid math student, he also did a few practice exams. My youngest scored 99th percentile, he said that he had to guess 2 of the problems because he ran out of time. Based on feedback from his teacher I don’t think he got every answer correct.

May I know what practice exams that your kid used ?

[Anonymous]

He used the IAAT practice books on Amazon. He knew the material very well but wasn’t able to complete the problems in time at first. The practice tests are to get used the the very fast pace of answering questions, learning to skip questions that are hard and come back to them at the end, or how to make a quick educated guess. I would recommend if your child doesn’t know how answer the questions without a time constraint, it is too late in the year to learn the content and be prepared for Honors Algebra 1 next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He used the IAAT practice books on Amazon. He knew the material very well but wasn’t able to complete the problems in time at first. The practice tests are to get used the the very fast pace of answering questions, learning to skip questions that are hard and come back to them at the end, or how to make a quick educated guess. I would recommend if your child doesn’t know how answer the questions without a time constraint, it is too late in the year to learn the content and be prepared for Honors Algebra 1 next year.

Is it a paper test or online? I know I’m old, but I really dislike how the SOLs etc are online and sometimes it’s not that straightforward to skip and come back to it or even to double check. Maybe that’s just my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS doesn’t give the score breakdown, only percentile. My oldest scored 98th percentile and has always been a very solid math student, he also did a few practice exams. My youngest scored 99th percentile, he said that he had to guess 2 of the problems because he ran out of time. Based on feedback from his teacher I don’t think he got every answer correct.

This is not correct, you can ask for the raw data/detailed report via your school's testing specialist. They will reach out to the Office of Student Testing for a copy the report.

My youngest scored in the 95%. She answered 52 out of 60 correctly. My oldest scored in the 98% and got 56 out of 60 correct.

For what it's worth, there really is no reason to accelerate by 2 grade levels unless you know your child is strong in math or going to do something that requires a lot of math. Figure out your end game before putting your child through this.