Academic Approach®

The Secondary School Admissions Test (SSAT) is an admissions test for entrance into grades 6-12. The SSAT lasts 2 hours and 25 minutes and is administered on 2 different levels: a lower level for students currently in grades 5-7, and an upper level for students currently in grades 8-11. In the U.S., the SSAT is administered in October, November, December, January, February, March, April, and June. Consult the SSAT website for registration information at http://www.ssat.org.

Schools use the SSAT as one measure among others—class rank, GPA, extracurricular activities, personal essay, and teacher recommendations—of a student's readiness to do middle school or high school work. SSAT scores are compared with the scores of other applicants and the accepted scores at an institution. Scores can also be used as a basis for awarding scholarships and merit-based financial aid. Please note that the SSAT does not offer score choice, so any score a student posts is indelibly recorded on his or her record.

Test Format for Upper Level SSAT

Section	Time	Number of Questions	Content Covered
Writing (not factored into student’s final score)	Essay: 25 minutes	1	Ability to organize and express ideas and to support them with examples
Quantitative (Math)	60 minutes (two 30-minute sections)	50 multiple-choice questions	Knowledge of arithmetic, pre-algebra, basic geometry, and mathematical reasoning
Verbal	30 minutes	60 multiple-choice questions: 30 synonym questions: 30 analogy questions	Ability to recognize synonyms and to make logical associations between words
Reading Comprehension	40 minutes	40 multiple-choice questions based on about seven reading passages	Ability to understand main themes, extract salient details, and understand meaning in context

Students are not permitted to use calculators, so careful processing and meticulous method are essential. The SSAT penalizes students for guessing: for every wrong response a student loses 1/4 of a point.

The student receives raw and scaled scores for verbal, quantitative, reading, and total as follows:

• Scale for grades 5-7: 440-710 (V/Q/R), 1320-2130 (Total)
• Scale for grades 8-11: 500-800 (V/Q/R), 1500-2400 (Total)

In addition to scaled scores, SSAT percentiles (1-99%) compare a student’s scores to the scores of other students who have taken the SSAT in the past three years. Also, students in grades 5-9 receive Estimated National Percentile Ranks, which compare a student’s performance to the performance of the national student population. For students in grades 7-10, a predicted 12th Grade SAT Score is provided.

Return to SSAT/ISEE Overview