The norming population for the National Achievement Tests consists of about 400,000 students across the nation from every type of background.

In the PR-S result's column, a  score of 50% would indicate that the student scored in the middle of his norming population.  A score of 60% would indicate your student performed better than 60% of those students and has a better than average score.   The number after the dash (1-9) is where on the normalized chart your child is compared to their peers; the higher the number, the better the student performed.

Grade Equivalence is the most misunderstood section of the test results information.  For example, if a 4th grader 's score is 5.2 on a given test, he/she performed as well as the average (50th percentile) 5th grader in his/her second month of school would have performed on the exact same test.  This statistical data should not be used to place a child in a particular grade level or to "jump"  grades.  On the other hand, If a child scores significantly below average, the parents should review the material that child had difficulty with and see what the reason was for the poor performance.  It could be that the student had not covered material on a given test section, or that the child had a bad day, that he/she needs to review the material or that he/she simply didn’t understand the material as expected.