Pretesting for the College Boards

Before a newly written question can appear on the Level I or Level II Mathematics Achievement Tests administered by the College Entrance Examination Board, it must be pretested with a sample group of several hundred students. Such groups are carefully selected for their similarity to the populations taking the Level I or Level II examinations in previous years, in order to provide reliable indicators of the way the question will “behave” if used at a later date in College Board Examinations. Both before and after pretesting, the questions are scrutinized by the staff of the Mathematics Department at Educational Testing Service and by a Committee of Examiners consisting of seven teachers of mathematics at the secondary and college level.