PARCC has released hundreds of test questions from the 2015 assessment. They’re online now, on a special page of the consortium’s Partnership Resource Center.
The consortium released the items “to give teachers a powerful tool to inform classroom instruction,” to “better prepare students for success,” it said in an announcement of the release.
“PARCC states see these released items as valuable instructional tools that will give teachers better insight into how students may demonstrate mastery of the standards and how they might be helped on their pathways to academic success,” it said.
The consortium also hopes that seeing the released items will help parents understand the test, so that the “assessments aren’t a mystery,” the consortium’s statement said.
Items were released from each grade level tested by PARCC, grades 3-11, and in both subjects, math and English/language arts. Enough items were released in each grade and subject to make up “roughly one full test,” the consortium said.
Along with the released items are examples of scored student work, and scoring rubrics that describe the performance required to score at each level of the test.
The Partnership Resource Center is PARCC’s online library of assessment and instructional resources, such as formative tasks for grades K-2 and teacher learning modules. Some resources are available to all, and others are available only to paying PARCC members.