HSPT (High School Placement Test): the five subtests with question counts and time limits, 298 questions in 141 minutes, how STS scores it (standard scores, national percentiles, the three composites and the Cognitive Skills Quotient), no guessing penalty, how schools use it, how to prepare, and a printable plan

The HSPT is the Saturday-morning test that decides a great deal for eighth graders applying to Catholic high schools: admission, scholarship money and ninth-grade placement. It is short on mystery and long on pace: 298 questions in 141 minutes, which is under 30 seconds a question on two of the five subtests. Everything below about the test comes from Scholastic Testing Service, which publishes it, and from the high schools that give it.

Download the HSPT plan (PDF) (the five subtests with counts, times and seconds per question, the scoring, the composites, a pacing plan and an eight-week preparation plan; two pages, free).

The five subtests

STS groups the first two as the cognitive skills subtests, which measure learning ability, and the last three as the basic skills subtests, which measure what has been learned; the composites follow that split. Some schools add an optional test from STS (such as a Catholic religion or a science test); the school's registration page says.

How it is scored

STS's own description, from its page for parents: the number of questions answered correctly is added up for each subtest, and points are not subtracted for incorrect answers, so there is no penalty for guessing. Raw scores are converted to standard scores and to national percentile ranks, which say what percentage of students in a national sample scored below the student; the percentiles run from 1 to 99 and 50 is exactly average. The composites are computed from the added raw scores of their subtests and are not the average of the part percentiles:

The report also carries the Cognitive Skills Quotient (CSQ), an index of learning ability built from the cognitive subtests and the student's age, scaled like an ability test around 100, and grade equivalents for the basic skills. STS's own FAQ for families takes the question of a student with an average CSQ (the 95 to 100 range) and low performance scores, which is the clearest sign that the subtests, not the index, are where to look. Scores are sent to the high schools the student coded on the answer sheet; each school, STS says, evaluates the scores in its own way, and a family with questions about how a particular school uses them should ask that school.

What a good score is

The admitting school decides, and it is the only source for its line. Schools quote the composite percentile most often; competitive admission commonly sits in the 70s and above and scholarship consideration in the 90s, with the cognitive and basic skills composites used for placement into honours sections. A student with a 95th-percentile Quantitative score and a 60th-percentile Language score is a real profile and worth a conversation with the school about placement.

STS's own advice on preparing

Scholastic Testing Service publishes a short list for families, and it is better than most of what is sold: listen to and read the directions for each subtest; pace yourself, because every subtest is timed and the administrator announces the halfway point; read each question carefully; work the problem on scratch paper, since calculators are not permitted; answer every question, because the score is the number correct and there is no penalty; check your work if time is left, and keep checking that the answer sheet line matches the question number. STS adds that it is not affiliated with any prep product and that a well-rounded education is the best preparation.

A pacing plan

The arithmetic of the timings is the preparation most students skip:

• Verbal Skills, 16 seconds a question. Answer on sight; mark and skip anything that takes more than ten seconds; return at the end.
• Quantitative Skills, 35 seconds. Number series and comparisons reward a written next term and a quick estimate; do not compute exactly what can be compared.
• Reading, 24 seconds including the passages. Read the questions first, then the passage once; vocabulary-in-context questions are answered from the sentence, not from memory.
• Mathematics, 42 seconds. The longest subtest and the one that decides placement; it is eighth-grade mathematics (the US sequence: pre-algebra and Algebra 1 concepts, geometry basics, percent, ratio, fractions). Estimate, eliminate, move on.
• Language, 25 seconds. Most items are "which sentence has the error, or no error": read for one error type at a time.

Eight weeks before the test

1. One full-length timed practice in week one, to find the subtest that costs the most and the pace that is unrealistic.
2. Weeks two to six: the mathematics gaps first (they are the slowest to fix and the most valuable for placement), then the language rules, then vocabulary every day.
3. Weeks seven and eight: two more timed sittings, the second under real conditions on a Saturday morning, and nothing new in the last three days.

The HSPT is one of three private-school admissions tests; the ISEE and SSAT are used by independent schools and have different scoring (a wrong-answer penalty on the SSAT), so a student applying to both kinds of school prepares for two tests.

Download the HSPT plan (PDF) (the subtests, the scoring, the pacing plan and the eight-week plan; two pages, free).

Where to get help

A 1-on-1 online class with a tutor who holds a master's degree and teaches the US curriculum from Grade 1 number work to AP Calculus, chemistry and physics, at 7 am before school, after 4 pm and on weekend mornings, US time, for US$10 to $13 an hour: the report read together in the free 30-minute first class, the domain or the skill the score is really pointing at found, and the term spent on exactly that, with the method written out the way the school marks it. How online tutoring from India to the USA works, or the 1-on-1 online tutoring page.

Sources: Scholastic Testing Service, HSPT pages for parents (a placement test for eighth graders entering ninth grade, used by high schools for admissions, scholarship selection and curriculum placement; How Are Tests Scored: raw scores, no penalty, standard scores and national percentiles 1 to 99, the composites; Preparing for the HSPT; How Schools Use Your Scores; the family FAQ); the subtest question counts and time limits as published on admitting schools' HSPT information pages (Bishop Gorman High School and others), which agree on 60/16, 52/30, 62/25, 64/45 and 60/25. Fetched 9 November 2026.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →