The 2018 PSSA Assessment Blueprint is now available on PDE’s website. You can click on the subjects within this email.  Some items to note:

Science

• Reduction of multiple choice questions from 68 to 48 items for both grades 4 and 8
• No change in distribution percentage of questions in the 4 reporting categories
• Roughly 20 minutes overall reduction of testing time for both grades 4 and 8

Math

• Reduction of multiple choice questions from 72 to 52 items for all grades 3-8
• No change in distribution percentage of questions in the 5 reporting categories
• No change in number of Open Ended questions (3 items); as a result, this will count as 23% of the overall test (was 17%)

ELA

• Grade 3:
  • No Writing Prompt
  • Stand Alone multiple choice reduced from 18 to 9 items
  • No change in the number of Short Answer questions (2)
  • 4 Reporting Categories (was 5)
  • Roughly 40 minutes overall reduction of testing time
• Grades 4-8:
  • No Writing Prompt
  • Stand Alone multiple choice reduced from 18 to 9 items
  • No change to the weight of the Text-Dependent Analysis (16 points); as a result, this will now count as 25% of the overall test (was 19%)
  • 4 Reporting Categories (was 5)
  • Roughly 15 minutes overall reduction of testing time