The grade 3 New York
State Test

The short version

Grade 3 is the first year a New York child takes a state test. Whatever you have heard about these exams, this is the year the family forms its opinion of them, and it is worth going in knowing what they are for and what they are not.

The grade 3 tests cover two subjects. English Language Arts and mathematics are four sessions over four days, 72 questions worth 83 credits, of which 13 are written answers rather than multiple choice.

Session	Multiple choice	Written	Credits	Notes
ELA, session 1	23	2	27	About an hour for most eight-year-olds
ELA, session 2	6	3	12	Two passages; three short written replies
Mathematics, session 1	25	0	25	Bubbles only, the quickest sitting
Mathematics, session 2	5	8	19	Thirteen items, eight of them written
Total	72 questions		83

Nobody is watching a clock

An eight-year-old cannot be hurried through this, and nobody will try. The state publishes average completion times so schools can plan the morning: roughly an hour for the first English sitting, a bit longer for the second, and about an hour for each math sitting at grade 3. Those are planning numbers, not cutoffs. A third-grader who is still reading when the class average is reached keeps going.

For a third-grader the screen is the bigger adjustment than the questions are: reading a passage in a window and scrolling back up to it is a skill nobody taught them in second grade. Ten minutes on the device at home, scrolling a story and answering a question about the second paragraph, removes most of that.

What the result actually decides

A grade 3 result does not decide placement, promotion or admission to anything. Nothing follows from it. That is not a reassurance offered to calm you down; it is the actual situation, and it is the reason grade 3 is the cheapest year in which to find out how your child handles a formal test.

Levels, and why there is no percentage

A level 2 in grade 3 is not a prediction. It is a reading of one week in April in a child's first year of testing. Third grade is the only year with no earlier score to compare against, so the level is a starting point rather than a trend.

Of the 83 credits at grade 3, 24 come from writing, about 29% of the result. Most of that sits in the second math sitting, where eight of thirteen questions ask a child to show how they got there.

The results arrive far too late to be a study plan

Your child sits the test in April and early May of third grade. Schools see preliminary figures over the summer, and the public release follows in the autumn. By the time the grade 3 result is public your child is in grade 4 with a different teacher, and nobody in the building is going to change anything on the strength of it.

You are allowed to refuse

Refusing is done by letter. Write to the principal of your child's school with the child's name, class teacher and grade, and say that you are refusing the grade 3 English and math tests. No meeting is required, and no reason has to be given. New York has no law that compels a child to sit them, and refusals are common enough that schools have a routine for them.

Refusal rates are highest in the early grades, and grade 3 is where most families who ever refuse make the decision for the first time. Some do it because an eight-year-old sitting four sessions seems like a lot to ask, which is a fair reading. Others do it as a protest about testing policy. Both are your call to make and neither requires the school's agreement.

We sell practice tests, so weigh this accordingly: for a third-grader we think sitting is usually worth it, because the stakes are nil and the information is real. It is still your call.

Who actually looks at this result

Nowhere. No New York City program admits on a grade 3 result, and none screens with one. The score exists for the state's accountability reporting and for you. If a school tells you a grade 3 result affects a placement decision, ask which one, in writing.

What is worth doing at grade 3

Do not revise for it. There is nothing to revise: the content is what the classroom has covered all year. What is worth doing is one session-length practice run so the format is not new, because for an eight-year-old the unfamiliarity is the whole difficulty. Twenty-five minutes and a conversation afterward beats a workbook.

A practical point for the week itself: the four sittings are spread over separate days, so an off morning on the first English sitting does not spill into math. If your child comes home upset after day one, the most useful thing to say is that the next sitting is a fresh start and that nobody at school will see a score for months.

How a written answer is marked

A written answer at grade 3 is scored against the state's rubric for what it says. Spelling, neatness and grammar are not part of the score. One clear sentence in a child's own words can earn every available point, while a sentence copied from the story without answering the question earns none.

Parents of eight-year-olds worry most about handwriting, and it is the one thing that provably does not matter here. So the thing to practice is answering the question that was asked, using something from the passage, in the child's own words.

What we found when we tested our own exam

A grade 3 practice test is the first standardized test a child ever meets, which makes an inflated score especially cruel: the family learns nothing and the child learns that tests are easy. So we measure it. Across the 24 sections of our New York State Tests exams long enough to measure (658 questions, in sections of 20 or more), the best score any length-based strategy reaches is 36%, against the 33% that same strategy scores on a paper with no tell in it at all. Four strategies are scored: pick the longest option, pick the shortest, cross off the longest and guess, cross off the shortest and guess.

An eight-year-old has no stake in the result, so a practice test is only useful if its number can be trusted.

Our grade 3 ELA was one of the sections we had to fix. Picking the longest answer scored up to 91% on Grade 3 and Grade 4 Form B ELA before the rewrite, which is the worst number in this whole story and the reason the check exists at all.

Where to practice

Our grade 3 practice tests run all four sessions, one per sitting, the way the real week is structured, and they mark the written answers against the state's rubrics rather than skipping them. Every wrong answer carries its own explanation saying what a student who picked it was probably thinking, which is the part that turns a score into something you can act on. There is a free sample on the samples page if you want to see the format before paying for anything.

Two shorter grade 3 pages go into what is on each session and how the scoring works.

Common questions

How many questions are on the grade 3 New York State Test?

The grade 3 test has 72 across four sessions, worth 83 credits. 59 are multiple choice and 13 are written answers.

Is the grade 3 New York State Test timed?

No. Grade 3 has no time limit. The minute figures published for each sitting are averages for planning a school morning, and a third-grader who needs longer is given it.

Can I refuse the grade 3 state test for my child?

Yes. Send the principal a letter naming your child, their teacher and grade, and the grade 3 tests you are refusing. New York has no statute requiring participation, and you do not need to give a reason or attend a meeting.

When do grade 3 New York State Test results come back?

Schools receive preliminary results over the summer after third grade; the public release comes in the autumn, when your child is already in grade 4.

Does the grade 3 result affect anything?

A grade 3 result does not decide placement, promotion or admission to anything.