Do scores on the CAT/5® reflect a students understanding or use of a particular set of textbooks and/or curriculum?
No. There isn’t any specific curriculum attached to or associated with the CAT/5 (nor, for that matter, any other brand of nationally standardized achievement test). Rather, the subjects and skills measured by the tests seek to reflect those commonly taught in traditional school curricula used in all types of schools – public, private and homeschool – in the USA. The score reports will, therefore, give academic achievement data that compares the students to the normative group, i.e. their grade peers across the country in these various types of schools who originally took the test to form the norm group. This is why these are called “Nationally Standardized (or normed)” achievement tests.
