How to use an ISEE Upper Level practice test

What this exam actually asks of you

The ISEE Upper Level is four timed sections for applicants to grades 9 through 12, plus an essay that carries no score and is still sent to every school on your list. Upper Level is the only ISEE where the mathematics uses algebra.

The mistake that ruins the result

Sitting it fresh, on its own, in a quiet week. The real Upper Level lands in the same autumn as the SHSAT and often the TACHS, and the version of your child who sits it will be three admissions tests deep.

How to sit it

130 minutes, four sections, in one go. If you are also preparing for the SHSAT, sit this one on a different weekend rather than the same day, because what you want to measure is this exam and not fatigue.

What to do the day after

Check the mathematics separately from everything else. Fourteen of the 168 mathematics and quantitative items across our two Upper forms use algebra, and that is the entire difference between this level and the one below it.

What a practice test owes you

An ISEE result is a stanine from 1 to 9 and a percentile against other independent school applicants over three years, so a practice mark out of 160 compares to nothing. The reasons behind the wrong answers are the part that transfers.

Our ISEE bank holds 894 questions and 2,682 wrong answers, and every one of those wrong answers carries its own sentence saying what a student who picked it was probably thinking. Not one is left bare, and a build of our site fails if that stops being true. On the ISEE Upper Level the reasons matter most in Verbal Reasoning, where 19 synonym questions turn on knowing a word and being told which one you missed is the whole lesson.

We also measure whether the paper can be beaten without being read. On our ISEE exams the best any length-based strategy scores is 40%, against the 25% that pure guessing gives. A practice test where picking the longest option beats guessing is measuring the person who wrote it, not your child.

The percentile compares your child against other independent school applicants over three years, not against children in general, so a practice raw score converts to nothing on its own.

Where to sit one

We publish two full ISEE Upper Level forms with no questions shared between them, and you can sit a single section when that is all the evening allows. A free sample is on the samples page, and it needs no account.

More on this exam: the full ISEE Upper Level guide, what is on it, which level applies.

Common questions

How long should a ISEE Upper Level practice test take?

130 minutes across four sections for the ISEE Upper Level, plus a thirty-minute essay on the real exam that we do not set.

Should a ISEE Upper Level practice test be timed?

Yes, section by section. Verbal Reasoning at 30 seconds a question is the tightest clock on the paper and cannot be rehearsed any other way.

Is the score the useful part of a ISEE Upper Level practice test?

No, the reasons are. Every one of the 2,682 wrong answers in our ISEE bank carries a sentence saying what a student who picked it was probably thinking, and for ISEE Upper Level that is what turns a list of misses into a plan.

How often should we sit a ISEE Upper Level practice test?

Once per testing season at most, because that is how often the real ISEE can be sat. Three sittings in a year is the ceiling and there is no reason to practice more often than you can test.