NAEP Questions

• How NAEP Questions Are Used
• Copyrights
• Percent Correct Column
• Scoring Guides
• Number of Questions in the Tool

How NAEP Questions Are Used

The questions in the NAEP Questions Tool are presented for the use of teachers, parents, students, and others as

• examples of what NAEP asks students at grades 4, 8, and 12 for main NAEP, and at ages 9, 13, and 17 for long-term trend;
• exemplars of questions that probe students' knowledge of a specific content area; and
• a way to compare an individual's performance on a specific question to that of the students across the nation and in the state.

Since some questions must be kept secure for use in future NAEP assessments, only a portion of each NAEP assessment is released. Consequently, the released questions in this tool do not represent complete coverage of the content, cognitive skills, and range of difficulty in the NAEP assessment for a particular subject area. These questions are not intended to be used as practice tests for future NAEP assessments.

The NAEP released questions are assessment materials that can be used to show students' knowledge in Civics, Geography, Mathematics, Reading, Science, Writing, and U.S. History. In the case of long-term trend items, materials can be used to show progress of students over time. The questions may be used in any suitable way that educators, parents, or students wish. However, they are not intended as a way to "practice" for the NAEP assessments, because they are representative of only a small part of the assessment.

Copyrights

The questions in the NAEP Questions Tool may be reproduced as long as any copyright restrictions are observed for third-party copyrighted material. These restrictions are noted on the questions that have them.

If you publish any part of the questions provided here, please include the acknowledgment below. The year and the name of the assessment you are using (e.g. 2007 reading) should appear at the end of the statement.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2007 Reading Assessment.

Percent Correct Column

The percent correct column in the Questions Tool shows the percent of students who answered a particular question correctly. For a constructed-response question in which students could earn partial or complete credit, the percent correct is computed by adding the percent of students receiving full credit to a fraction of the percent of the students receiving partial credit.

For example, some questions are scored correct, partial, or incorrect. If, for example, 16 percent of the students gave a fully correct answer on a question, and an additional 24 percent of the students gave a partial answer, the percent correct for this question would be computed as 16 + 1/2 (24) = 28. The partial results were weighted by 1/2 because there were two levels of credit for the question. Responses to a question with four levels of credit would receive weights of 1/4 (minimal), 1/2 (partial), and 3/4 (satisfactory).

Scoring Guides

The tool presents the scoring guides that were used by trained scorers during the assessments. The guides were intended to be used in face-to-face training of scorers rather than as stand-alone documents. For inquiries about scoring guides for individual questions, go to Contact Us and submit your requests.

Number of Questions in the Tool

The table that follows contains the number of released questions in each assessment by subject, year, and grade for main NAEP. The same information is available by age for long-term trend. There are now more than 2,000 questions available in this tool, plus another 142 questions from the 1996 science assessment that are available in PDF form.

Because of copyright restrictions for much of the material used in the 1997 NAEP arts assessment, we are unable to put NAEP arts questions in the Questions Tool; however, most of the grade 8 Visual Arts, Theater, and Music questions are available as part of the NAEP 1997 Arts Report Card CD-ROM. A limited number of complimentary copies of the CD are available by calling (877) 433-7827. Additional copies are available for $15 each from the Government Printing Office. Call (202) 512-2250.

Released Main NAEP Questions by Subject, Year, Grade

Year 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007  Grade 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12 4 8 12  Subject                                                                          Civics                         30 37 38                               30 38 38        Economics                                                                 53        Geography             43 46 48                   31 49 33                                U.S. History             47 50 53                   30 30 34                   33 49 32        Mathematics 33 38 41 59 69 63       25 29 29                         59 67   32 56 53       54 53    Reading             11 19 10       10 8 15 9           12 10 8 21 19   19 31 24       10 11    Science                               31 45 38                   42 45 42              Writing                         3 4 3             3 3 3                     3 3

Released Long-Term Trend Questions by Subject, Year, Age

Year 2004  Age 9 13 17  Subject        Mathematics 17 20 28  Reading 10 9 9

We need your help to make the NAEP Questions Tool better! Please send us your comments and suggestions.

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Last updated 6 March 2006 (PCG)