ISEE Lower Level Test

What is isee lower level ?

There are three levels in the Independent School Entrance Examination that are used by most of the private schools and magnet schools to help them assess your child’s skills and be able to rank him or her with his abilities and achievements against the other students his or her age. These levels are the Lower Level, Middle Level, and Upper Level.

If your child is currently in grade 4 or 5, he or she will be assessed by the chosen school based on his or her performance in the ISEE Lower Level Test to see if he or she meets their requirement to be admitted to grade 5 to 6 on their school.

All the three levels have the same concepts such as the verbal, math I, reading, math II, and essay writing. Verbal and quantitative reasoning will test your child on both vocabulary and mathematical reasoning skills and concepts. Reading comprehension will involve reading short passages and then answering questions related to it. And, in essay writing, your child will be tasked to create an essay about an assigned topic.

Although all the levels are the same with their contents, each one is structured differently. In verbal, your child will be given 20 minutes to answer questions about synonyms or sentence completion. Math II, which is focusing on reasoning and application, has 35 multiple choice questions and quantitative comparisons that your child needs to answer in 35 minutes. Reading has 36 questions that are needed to be answered in 40 minutes. Math II, which is focusing on computation and application, has 45 multiple choice questions and be given 45 minutes to answer them. And, in the essay writing, your child will be given 30 minutes to finish it.
Just like all the other levels, the scoring is the same. Answer sheets, together with the essay created, are sent to the ISEE Operations Office. Only the four multiple choice sections will be scored and produced with the Individual Student Report (ISR). The essay will not be scored but will be photocopied and sent to the school of choice together with the ISR. The test is scored based on the total number of correct answers while the wrong ones will not be penalized.

Since each school has their own standards and criteria for admission, you would not really know what a good score is unless you ask them during the interview. And because this test can only be taken once in every six-moth period, it is best to have your child prepared for it.