In 1999, the Utah State Legislature drafted and passed H.B. 33. Among other things, H.B. 33 called for the construction and implementation of a basic skills competency test to be given in the tenth grade. By passing H.B. 177 in 2000, the legislature again affirmed the need and desire for a basic skills competency test.

In the summer of 2000, the Utah State Office of Education contracted a national test publisher to develop the basic skills competency test. Students who are tenth graders in 2004 (the graduating class of 2006) will need to pass this test in order to receive a "basic high school diploma."

USBCT
The Utah Basic Skills Competency Test measures concepts in reading, writing, and mathematics drawn from the Utah State Core Curriculum. The test measures only "basic skills" as defined by the State Board of Education. Students will take the test during the spring of their tenth grade year, and total testing time will be approximately four to six hours.

The class of 2006 will be the first graduating class to be affected by the test’s implementation. Students in the class of 2006 will be required to pass all three sections of the test in order to receive a "basic high school diploma.

DWA
The Direct Writing Assessment (DWA) is a criterion-referenced test designed to assess the writing skills of Utah students in grades six and nine. This writing test is an element of the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS). It was first administered statewide in the spring of 2002. Beginning with the spring of 2003, the DWA will be administered seven weeks before the last day of school for grade 6 and fourteen weeks before the last day of school for grade 9.

The DWA is scored using an analytic rather than a holistic scoring method. The scoring rubric, which is aligned with the Utah Core Curriculum for language arts, focuses on six components of writing: ideas & content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

Iowa Tests
The Iowa Tests are administered to students at the following grades:

• Grade 3 / level 9
• Grade 5 / level 11
• Grade 8 / level 14
• Grade 11 / level 17-18
  The Iowa Tests were designed to measure the broadest range of skills possible within an efficient administration time. The subtests and working times are the same for grades 3, 5, and 8.

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Form B: Survey Battery (Plus Science and Social Studies tests)

• Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension: 30 minutes
• Language Arts: 30 minutes
• Mathematics: 30 minutes
• Science: 30 minutes
• Social Studies: 30 minutes
  Total working time at grades 3, 5, and 8: two hours, 30 minutes (150 minutes).

End of the Year Criterion Referenced Tests (CRTs)

The Elementary Language Arts Criterion Referenced Tests assess the knowledge and skill of students in grades 1 - 6 in the areas of reading, writing, and listening as outlined in the Utah Core Curriculum. These tests are an integral component of U-PASS (Utah Performance Assessment System for Students) and the federal No Child Left Behind (ESEA) legislation.

Merit’s language arts and math software programs correlate to the Utah State Core Curriculum and can help students prepare for the State tests. The content and format of Merit’s programs can help students develop and strengthen their test-taking skills as well as their reading, writing and math skills.

Merit reading software has been proven -- through rigorous, scientifically based research -- to increase both student reading comprehension and standardized test scores. Merit research study findings reveal that education software is an effective tool to improve test scores and academic performance.

Published: March 2005