As Indiana winds down its decades-long relationship with the fraught ISTEP test, Hoosier students and teachers can finally get a first look at the test that comes next.
The Indiana Department of Education, with test-writer American Institutes for Research, has released sample questions for the ILEARN test, which will replace ISTEP for elementary and middle school students next year. High schools are still stuck with the 10th-grade ISTEP test for at least one more year, thanks to legislative efforts to align state testing timelines with those recommended for new graduation requirements, known as “graduation pathways.” The test has been a point of frustration for schools as they’ve dealt with numerous changes and several instances of technological glitches and problems over the years.
Read: Indiana’s plan to measure high schools with a college prep test is on hold for two years
ILEARN originally included a computer-adaptive test for grades 3-8 and end-of-course exams for high-schoolers in English, algebra, and biology. High school exams in biology and U.S. government are in development, but the state must now figure out how to transition from the 10th-grade ISTEP to a college entrance exam for English and math, which legislators proposed during this year’s regular session.
Indiana is required by the federal government to test students each year in English and math, and periodically, in science.
Below we show you some examples of ILEARN questions released by AIR, a company that helped create the Common Core-affiliated Smarter Balanced test.
You can try them out yourself with this interactive practice test, and learn more about ILEARN from the education department’s website.
Fourth-grade math
Eighth-grade writing
U.S. government
Biology
Want more Indiana practice test questions? Check out ones from 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.