Math pretests: find out what they already know
A pretest is the end-of-unit paper given at the start. Its job is not to grade anybody — it is to find the parts of the unit a child can already do, so those parts do not get taught to them again.
- One right answer per question
- Grouped into sections you can skip
- Reopen the same paper to re-test
Four steps
How to run one
Ten minutes of marking buys back days of a unit. The only unusual step is the second one.- 1Give the paper before the unitThe same test you would set at the end. Tell the child it is not marked — that is true, and it stops the blanks being anxious ones.
- 2Mark it by section, not by totalA score out of thirty tells you nothing you can act on. A section answered cleanly is a section you can drop, and that is the whole result.
- 3Rebuild the paper without those sectionsThe Test Maker keeps the sections you still need, so the same paper becomes the post-test with the known parts gone.
- 4Spend what you saved on depthNot more of the same, faster. A child who has already met the content needs a harder question, not an earlier one.
Ready to print
Unit tests to pretest with
Every one is a fixed paper with a marking key, and reopens from its code so the same questions come back for the post-test.- Grade 1 year testGrade 1
- Quadratics and factoring testAlgebra 1
- Addition and subtraction testGrades 2–3
- Grade 2 year testGrade 2
- Math fluency testGrades 2–3
- Rounding testGrades 2–3
- Word problem quizGrades 2–4
- Decimals unit testGrades 3–4
- Factors and multiples testGrades 3–4
- Grade 3 year testGrade 3
- Mixed math testGrades 3–4
- Multi-digit multiplication testGrades 3–4
- Multiplication and division testGrades 3–4
- Fractions unit testGrades 4–5
- Grade 4 year testGrade 4
- Long division testGrades 4–5
- GCF and LCM testGrades 5–6
- Grade 5 year testGrade 5
- Integers and equations testGrades 5–6
- Order of operations testGrades 5–6
- Ratio and percent testGrades 5–6
- Expressions and equations testGrades 6–7
- Grade 6 year testGrade 6
- Exponents and scientific notation testGrades 7–8
- Grade 7 year testGrade 7
- Linear functions and slope testGrades 7–8
- Systems of equations testGrades 7–8
- Grade 8 year testGrade 8
- Angles and triangles testGeometry
- Area, perimeter, and volume testGeometry
- Graphs and data testData & statistics
- Pythagorean theorem testGeometry
- Transformations and similarity testGeometry
- Trigonometry testTrigonometry
Why give the test first
Because a child who already knows a fortnight of the unit will otherwise sit through it. That is the ordinary case, not the rare one, and it is the reason curriculum compacting exists: find what is already mastered, take it out of the plan, and use the time on something else. The instrument it needs is unglamorous — a fixed paper with one right answer per question and sections you can read separately — which is what this site has been printing all along.
What a pretest is not
The step people skip is the second one. A total tells you a child got 22 out of 30, which is not something you can teach differently in response to. Marking section by section tells you they can already convert fractions and cannot yet divide by them, and that is a plan. It is also why every paper here is built out of sections rather than a shuffled thirty.