Standardized Testing

Each fall, students in grades 1st-8th take the Iowa Assessment Test and the Cognitive Abilities Test.

Iowa Assessment Test
The Iowa Assessment test is a nationally standardized achievement test. Test results show a child’s achievement compared to students across the nation. The test is primarily used to evaluate the progress of a single student over a period of years, and to assess the student’s content mastery, strengths, and weaknesses. The Iowa Assessment scores reflect a student’s compilation of knowledge between what is learned in the classroom, personal experiences, educational support in the home, and books read. There is no need to study or prepare for this assessment. Students are expected to show grade level growth year to year. The vast majority of St. Mark students show growth of more than one grade level year to year. Research shows this remarkable growth is attributed to the effectiveness of the classroom teacher and the quality of the school curriculum.

Iowa Assessment scores are used to nominate students for gifted and talented programs such as DECATS and DUKE TIP, and to recommend students for remediation or instructional intervention.

Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT)
The CogAT is an abilities test, not an achievement test. The test measures a student’s general and specific reasoning abilities.

Reasoning abilities reflect how well students can learn new tasks and solve problems. Knowing how a student processes information greatly influences how instruction will be designed and delivered to the student.

The Ability Profile Interpretation on the CogAT gives teachers specific recommendations for differentiating instruction based upon the unique dimension of the students in the classroom. The CogAT is compared to the Iowa Assessments to insure students are working up to their potential.