Standardisation is the process by which a raw score is mathematically adjusted to be on a readily understandable scale. This allows standardised scores from more than one test to be meaningfully compared or added together to give a fair indication of how well your child scored compared to everyone else taking the test and provides a way of comparing the scores for the different subjects using the same scale.

The lowest score is usually 69 or 70 and the highest score 140 or 141.

Two of the main adjustments applied in the standardisation process take the student's age and difficulty of the actual test paper into account. Therefore, your child's score may actually go up or down depending on how well they do in comparison to everyone else taking the test in the same year.

The adjustments for age generally only affect a student's score by a few marks, so it does not help to rely on the fact that your child is young to bump up their final score significantly.

However, it is important for your child to realise that if the test paper seems really easy, working as accurately as possible to avoid careless errors is essential as it is likely the scores will be adjusted downwards if the test is easy. Likewise, if the test paper seems really tricky,  no need to panic, as it is very likely that everyone is finding it tricky so the scores are likely to be adjusted upwards.

Due to the adjustments, many of our previous students have ended up getting their higher result on what they felt was the harder paper because the results got adjusted as has just been explained.