Question

Which of the following most accurately describes a criterion-referenced score?

A. A score that indicates how well a student understands the specific content on the test

B. A ranking that indicates how well a student understands the content relative to all of his or her peers

C. A number that indicates a student's percentile rank relative to all other students in the district

D. A value that compensates for the difference in difficulty between the test a student took this year and the test used last year

Answer 1

A criterion-referenced score, like option A, indicates how well a student has learned the specific content on the test, without comparison to peers. It assesses whether a student has met a predetermined standard or benchmark.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question asks which option most accurately describes a criterion-referenced score. A criterion-referenced score, such as option A, is a score that indicates how well a student has learned the specific content or skills that the test is intended to measure, without comparing them to peers. It is fundamentally different from norm-referenced scores, which are comparisons against the performance of a group of peers (option B and C), and from equated scores that adjust for test difficulty over different testing times (option D).