California Achievement Test (CAT/5)
Most home schooling parents want to have evaluative aids to help assess their children’s academic progress. Many states even have explicit testing requirements for students. To meet your standardized testing needs, Kolbe Academy is pleased to offer the CAT/5 (California Achievement Test) Complete Battery test. This service provides a home schooling family with all testing materials, instructions, and evaluation materials. The CAT/5 is a nationally-recognized, norm- and criterion-referenced standardized test administered to elementary and secondary school students in public and private schools across the country. It is one of numerous standardized tests available to chart the progress of students. The primary benefit of the CAT/5 is its usefulness as a diagnostic tool to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in a student’s academic profile and to chart progress from year to year. This is not the CAT-E survey test, but rather a full battery test covering content areas in reading, spelling, language, math, study skills, science, and social studies. Tests are available for grades 1-11 (12th grade tests are the same as the 11th). Please check with your state for testing requirements.
Cost
The CAT/5 test is available for only $40 per test for registered families and $50 per test for non-registered families. We apologize but we cannot accept international orders.
Choosing a Test Date
Tests and all necessary instruction materials will be mailed one week prior to your designated testing date. Parents administer the tests to their home school students and return the tests and all testing materials, including the instruction and test booklets, to Kolbe Academy within three weeks of receiving the tests. The test may take up to five days to complete, especially for the lower grades. There is no scheduled date to take this test. You may take the test whenever you like, however you must return all materials within three weeks. Before ordering, please look at your calendar carefully to make sure you can complete and return the test within the three week period. The best time to take the test, both to minimize scoring delays and to meet many states’ requirements, is between February and May. Before February 1 and after May 1, longer delays in scoring are possible.
Scoring
Scoring is done by CTB/McGraw Hill and NOT BY KOLBE so please realize that it can take up to 12 weeks to get returns on your child's score. All CAT/5 components provide national results on the same scale so you can compare results directly.
Registration
Testing materials are made available on loan (not sale) to families. Kolbe Academy is responsible for protecting the integrity and confidentiality of the CAT/5 program and its professional obligations to the CTB/McGraw Hill Company. All testing materials must be returned to Kolbe Academy. An additional fee of $70 per test will be assessed for all non-returned materials. To order the tests, you may fax your registration form using a credit card to 707-255-1581, or mail your registration form with a check, money order, or credit card number. There will be no phone orders, as we must receive the registration form with your signature before we will send out a test. Tests will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with registered families receiving priority. Testing materials may become backordered. In such cases, tests will be sent ASAP in the order requests were received, with registered families receiving priority. If you are ordering more than one test, and one or more tests are backordered, we will hold your entire order until all tests are available.
Content
The CAT/5 standardized test represents different cultures and covers a broad range of subjects, appealing to all students. For authenticity, artwork simulates the material's original medium—such as a notice on a bulletin board, a newspaper article, or a journal entry.
Reading
Five reading subtests include two pre-reading tests for Kindergarten, a Word Analysis test for Grades 1-3, and Vocabulary and Comprehension tests for Grades K-12.
Spelling
This subtest for Grades 2-12 assesses three broad areas of spelling skills: vowel sounds, consonant sounds, and structural units.
Language
The Language Mechanics and Language Expression subtests work together to measure a broad range of language and writing skills essential to full literacy. Test items measure the ability to apply standard usage and writing conventions and to develop effective sentences and paragraphs.
Mathematics
The Mathematics Computation and Mathematics Concepts and Applications subtests assess the ability to perform fundamental mathematics operations, apply mathematical concepts, and use a variety of problem-solving strategies.
Study Skills
This subtest for Grades 4-12 measures how well students can carry out independent study using information-processing skills that they can apply across subject areas.
Science
Science items sample knowledge of the natural world and assess inquiry skills. Objectives are carefully targeted to the grade and match common curriculum groups: animal and plant life, matter and energy, and Earth and space sciences.
Social Studies
The Social Studies subtest measures understanding of various disciplines needed for a comprehensive global perspective: geography, economics, history, government, citizenship, sociology, and anthropology.
Basic Skills Battery
Norm-referenced and criterion-referenced information in Reading, Spelling, Language, Mathematics, and Study Skills. The Complete Battery includes all the tests of the Basic Skills Battery plus Science and Social Studies at Level 11 and above. Criterion-referenced scores identify student master levels; optional thinking skills scores provide a measure of complex cognitive operations. |
