Introduction to Standardised Scores

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Many schools take the standardised scores into account in their admission process. But parents find these standardised scores confusing because they are calculated differently from usual raw scores. Schools usually use standardised scores to ensure fairness to all applicants, but these can be challenging to calculate and understand. We have created a calculator to simplify the process.

What is a Raw Score?

Most people are accustomed to raw scores where the score is calculated simply based on how many marks the applicant has attained out of total marks. Test authorities can provide these scores directly in numbers such as 8 out of 10 or in percentile format such as 80%. These are known as raw and are easily understandable by most people as they directly indicate the proportion of the total score an applicant has achieved.

Although the raw score is easy to understand and calculate, they are not helpful when comparing the performance of the two or more tests. Raw marks do not include time, difficulty, age or performance compared to others, which makes this little unfair for some applicants. 

Standardised scores were introduced to add fairness to the examination process using scientific methods. The standardised scores should not be misinterpreted as scaled scores which are used to represent an expected standard.

Key difference between scaled and standardised scores

As defined by the Department of Education, a scaled score of 100 given at the end of the key stage 1 or key stage 2 represents the “expected standard”. This scaled score of 100 is not equivalent or the same as the standardised score of 100. The score of 100 in standardised tests represents the average performance of the pupil in comparison with everyone’s performance in the same test while a scaled score is the expected standard to meet the difficulty level of the test. As the difficulty level of the assessment varies each year, the expected scores may vary with the level of difficulty in the assessment.

To learn more about how the scaled scores are calculated at the national level assessment for the national curriculum tests, check out understanding scaled scores at key stage 2 or the scaled score conversion tables for the national curriculum tests.

What are standardised tests?

Standardised tests are carefully designed consistent tests that maintain uniformity in administering, interpreting the results, and scoring procedures. These tests enable applicants’ performance to be benchmarked against the national average and meaningfully compared with other applicants and standardised scores from other tests.

Standardised tests are usually taken by a large population and are not only restricted to a school or a few schools. Many schools use these standardised assessments to evaluate the performance level of the students for entrance to their school. These assessments are designed to measure achievement in various skills and content.

In regular exams, pupils are generally evaluated in raw scores. Still, this raw score cannot be used for an entrance assessment as it does not include other factors that are essential to ensure fairness to all pupils.

What are standardised scores?

The standard score is the number of standard deviations by which the raw score attained by the pupil is above or below the mean score measured. Pupils with raw scores above the mean score have a positive standard score, whereas pupils with raw scores below the mean score will have a negative standard score.

Therefore, if a pupil scores 75% on a test in which the average score is 80%, the score will be 95, whereas if the average score is 70%, the score will be 105. From this example, you can understand that the mean score is taken as a score of 100. Almost all applicants fall within the range of 70 to 140, and nearly two-thirds of applicants out of this have scores between 85 and 115. Scores outside the range of 70 to 140 are pretty rare and therefore are regarded as exceptional.

You can check the table below, where pupils are grouped based on the standardised scores, for further understanding. The numbers may further vary depending on the test providers.

Why are standardised scores important?

Standardisation takes into account various factors such as –

1. The time allotted and the number of questions asked in each section can differ from one another. For example, a maths paper may have 100 questions and takes 45 minutes, while a verbal reasoning test has 80 questions and takes 50 minutes. With a different number of questions and different time frames allotted to complete them, adding the simple raw number from both the rest will not give us the correct result and will not be the right thing to do, therefore to provide an equal weightage to every section, the scores are standardised. With standardisation, an equal value is assigned to each section. 
2. The pupils appearing for the entrance exam may have different ages at the time of their 11 plus exam; one pupil taking the exam might be born on the last day of the school year (August 31st), while other pupils might be born on the first (September 1st). With an entire one year difference in their ages, the older applicant is clearly at an advantage. The marks are thus age optimised to ensure fairness among all students sitting for the exam. 
3. When testing on multiple calculating the score, the standardisation for Mathematics and English are done separately

What are age-standardised scores? 

As we know, the difference between the ages of two applicants can be up to 12 months. The older child is clearly at an advantage as they will have an entire additional year’s vocabulary compared to a younger child. Almost always, older pupils achieve higher raw scores than younger pupils; hence to derive fairness to all pupils, scores are age optimised where pupils’ ages are taken into account by comparing pupils with others in the nationally representative sample.

Compared with other pupils in the nationally representative sample, a younger child may score a higher standardised score even with a low raw score compared to an older child with a higher raw score but lower standardised score. This generally happens because the younger pupil is compared with other younger pupils; this makes the age-standardised scores more beneficial. Although these scores are more advantageous, you need to know that not all standardised scores are age optimised. You need to confirm with your test provider whether the test your child appears for is age-standardised or not.

Standardised score calculator

You can either calculate the score manually or use our calculator. The calculator is most suitable for candidates appearing for the CSSE test or CEM test in Essex but students sitting the other test can also use it to gauge the level they are at based on age optimisation.

An example of how to interpret results

Judy’s date of birth is 10th October 2009. She took a Maths practice test using a past paper on KidSmart’s website and scored 32 out of 60. She also took an English practice test using the past paper and scored 37 out of 60.

Carly’s date of birth is 10th November 2009. She took Maths and English practice tests using past papers on KidSmart’s website and scored 32 out of 60 in Maths and 37 out of 60 in English.

Jim’s date of birth is 10th September 2009. He purchased the practice past papers bundle and took the same practice tests on Kidsmart’s website and score 30 out of 60 in Maths and 30 out of 60 in English.

Judy achieved a standardised score of 315.12, Carly achieved 316.15 and Jim achieved 314.12.

Jim is the oldest amongst the three and as a result, the standardisation score is lower than the other two even though he got the same raw scores. This is caused by the age standardisation that is applied to the standardisation process which takes into account the difference in their ages.

In order for Jim to do better than the other candidates, he will need to score 33 in Maths which will push the standardised score to 316.67.

In addition, our calculator also provides a percentile score which is an indication of where your score ranks amongst other pupils. So Jim’s score of 316.67 received a percentile score of 59% which means that 41% of the pupils did better than Jim and scored higher.