What is actually
on the ISEE.

The four scored sections

In order, at the Middle and Upper Levels:

The Lower Level runs 127 questions in 110 minutes and, importantly, has no quantitative comparison questions at all.

The section families do not expect

Quantitative Reasoning is not a second mathematics section. Much of it is quantitative comparison: two quantities, and the student decides which is greater, or whether that cannot be determined from the information given.

These reward reasoning over calculation, and a student meeting them for the first time on test day usually tries to compute both sides — which is slow and frequently unnecessary. Recognizing that a comparison can be settled without arithmetic is a skill, and it is learnable in a couple of weeks.

It is also the reason the Lower Level is genuinely a different exam rather than an easier one: this question type is absent there entirely.

Two mathematics sections, different jobs

Mathematics Achievement tests curriculum content — what a student has been taught. Quantitative Reasoning tests mathematical thinking with less computation. A student can be strong at one and weak at the other, and the score report separates them.

Verbal Reasoning is vocabulary

Synonyms and sentence completions, forty questions in twenty minutes — thirty seconds each. Like the HSPT verbal section, there is no time to work anything out. Vocabulary built steadily over months is the only thing that moves this score.

The essay

Unscored, but sent to schools, who read it. Thirty minutes on a supplied prompt. Worth practicing once or twice so the format is not a surprise; not worth a month.

How it is scored

In stanines, not percentages, which is where most parents get confused — see how ISEE scoring works.

Our ISEE practice exams run all four sections at these counts and timings, with two full forms at every level. ten free questions include ISEE questions.