Standardized tests questions

I have to fill out my intent to homeschool paperwork for our school district and it asks at the very end what test I plan to use, who is going to administer it and where the test will be done. I’m struggling to figure out what test I should go with. My sis-in-law has used the CAT because you can administer it at home without needing a BA or special certification but she warned me that it’s V.E.R.Y. outdated and some of the content is obviously written way back in the 90s. She doesn’t particularly like it but since she has used it in the past, she just keeps using it. (She actually is looking into going with a different test this year and is curious as to what test I am looking at choosing.)

My questions are thus:

  1. What test do you use?
  2. Why do you like it?
  3. Where do you order your chosen tests from?
  4. Do you administer the test yourself (vs using a 3rd party administrator)? And if you administer the test yourself, do you have to do any sort of training or certification process to be able to do so?

I’m so confused on some of this. I’m finding conflicting information on this topic at all of the websites I’ve been sent to by my school district so I thought I’d ask on here to see what others have liked and what they’ve done.
Thanks so much!

What about if you only have a BS degree? Does it have to be a BA?

I have a BS and could administer the Iowa.

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Have you looked at your state’s homeschool laws? Here in Washington, the state gives specific instructions regarding which tests are acceptable. I personally disagree with testing, but in an attempt to demonstrate obedience amongst other things for my children, I halfheartedly comply :slight_smile:

We use Seton Testing Services. From that site I chose the CAT 6. It was “updated” this year. You do not need a bachelor’s degree or any special certificate. Seton mails the test, you complete it in a timely manner and return it using some sort of tracking method. A week or so later you have your results.

Seton offers other tests, I recall seeing the IOWA and possibly others, but the CAT fit the bill.

May I suggest you post what state you live in? Someone on this site may have the exact answers you are looking for.

I’m in Minnesota and the state Dept of Ed is pretty vague about what tests I can use. They mention the Iowa and SAT tests specifically but don’t say you can’t use other tests. They do however send you to the University of Minnesota’s website where you can order the ITBS or the SAT tests only and it doesn’t say anything on either site on what the requirements are for me if I were to give the test myself. I looked into A Beka testing because I could order the same tests (ITBS and SAT) for quite a bit less $$ and I could also order practice tests as well but I think I need to do a certification thing in order to administer either test according to their webpage. I looked at the site listed in a couple year old COAH post on testing as well and there again, I was confused.

What I do know for my state’s requirements though is that I need to test my kids every year between the ages of 7-17 and I need to send the results to the school. The school said I don’t need to send them the results unless they request them or if my kids are enrolled in public school at some point though so I’ll go by what they say on that. Mostly I’m just trying to figure out what test to go with.

Our state requires that the test covers certain subjects and be less than 10 years old. We have always done portfolio reviews, although one year we also did a PASS test just to see what it would be like. It is not accepted in my state though, so I’m not sure if that’s helpful. I really like that it gave recommendations along with the scores. The one we went with last year that would actually have been accepted by the state was the online Stanford 10 by Seton. I really liked that is was online so that I didn’t need to worry about ripping books and sending them back. I administered it myself. There was a social studies section that covered things we had never covered, but he did fine. They gave me the score within a couple hours (it says 1-3 days). You do need to schedule it ahead of time. I scheduled it too late and would have not been able to get it approved by the state in time if I hadn’t already done a portfolio review. It has them take it over 2 days time and each day takes about 3-4 hours broken up however you want.