InView Test Explained: 5 Tests, Cognitive Skills Index (Mean 100, SD 16), Anticipated Achievement, TerraNova

Article 402 · USA

The InView is the ability test that comes home stapled to a TerraNova report, usually from a Catholic or Christian school, with a number called the CSI and a column called Anticipated Achievement that nobody explains. DRC and its predecessor CTB explain both in the interpretation guides they wrote for the schools, and this page uses those.

Download the InView sheet (PDF) (the five tests and what each asks, the CSI-to-percentile table, the Anticipated Achievement and DIFF flag explained and the questions to ask the school; two pages, free).

What it is

	InView
Publisher	Data Recognition Corporation (DRC), formerly CTB/McGraw-Hill
Grades	2 to 12 (the Primary Test of Cognitive Skills, PTCS, covers kindergarten and grade 1)
Format	Group test, paper or online, given with the TerraNova achievement test
Tests	Five: Verbal Reasoning–Words, Verbal Reasoning–Context, Sequences, Analogies, Quantitative Reasoning
Scores	Total verbal, total non-verbal and total; the Cognitive Skills Index (mean 100, SD 16), national percentile, stanine; Anticipated Achievement scores for the TerraNova tests

The five tests

Test	What the child does	Counts toward
Verbal Reasoning–Words	Finds relationships between words: which word belongs, which does not, what two words have in common	Verbal
Verbal Reasoning–Context	Reads a short passage and draws a conclusion or finds what must be true	Verbal
Sequences	Finds the rule in a series of figures, letters or numbers and chooses what comes next	Non-verbal
Analogies	Completes a picture analogy: A is to B as C is to ?	Non-verbal
Quantitative Reasoning	Finds relationships between numbers and quantities, with minimal computation	Non-verbal

Each test is short and multiple choice; the whole battery is given in a session alongside the achievement tests.

The Cognitive Skills Index

The CSI is DRC's age-dependent standard score, with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16, which DRC's guide describes as an average range of 84 to 116. It is reported for the total with a national percentile and a stanine.

CSI	About the percentile	Stanine
84	16th	3
92	31st	4
100	50th	5
108	69th	6
116	84th	7
124	93rd	8
128	96th	9
132	98th	9
140	99.4th	9

The percentile column is the normal-curve reading of the scale; the report prints DRC's exact national percentile for the child's age (and a grade percentile where the child is younger or older than the grade).

Anticipated Achievement and the DIFF flag

What makes the InView useful to a school is the second column it adds to the TerraNova report. For each achievement test (reading, language, mathematics, and the rest), the report prints the Anticipated Achievement score: the score, as a normal curve equivalent, that students with the child's CSI typically obtain. Beside it is the child's obtained NCE, and when the two differ by seven or more points the report flags DIFF, with "below" meaning the child achieved less than anticipated and "above" meaning more. DRC's guide treats seven points as the meaningful difference. Anticipated scores are not produced at kindergarten.

The reading: a child at the 85th percentile in reading with a CSI of 130 and a DIFF below is underachieving against their own ability, and the school should ask why; a child at the 60th percentile with a CSI of 95 and no DIFF is doing exactly what the ability predicts, and the next step is to build the skills, not to push the child. Reading the two columns together is the whole point of giving the two tests together.

How schools use it

Catholic and Christian school programmes (the Christian School Program through ACSI, diocesan testing programmes) give TerraNova with InView yearly in some or all of grades 2 to 12, and read the DIFF flags class by class.
Gifted screening in districts and states that accept it: Ohio's list of approved assessments includes the InView for superior cognitive ability under the state's rule, and districts elsewhere set a line at a CSI of about 127 or 128 or at the 97th percentile, usually with achievement evidence.
Placement: the verbal and non-verbal split helps place children new to English or with language difficulties, whose non-verbal score may show ability the verbal tests do not.

What to ask

Which InView tests were given and the three scores (verbal, non-verbal, total); the CSI with its percentile; each TerraNova test's obtained and anticipated NCE and any DIFF flags; what the school does with a DIFF below; and, if the school screens for gifted services with it, the line and the second measure. The CSI is a cousin of the CogAT's Standard Age Score (the CogAT page), the NNAT's index (the NNAT page) and the OLSAT's SAI, all on a mean-100, SD-16 scale, and a child's scores on them will be close but not identical; the gifted page has how districts combine them.

Download the InView sheet (PDF) (the tests, the CSI table, the DIFF flag and the questions; 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: DRC/CTB, Interpreting InView and PTCS Test Results, prepared for ACSI (2016): the CSI as an age-dependent score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16 and an average range of 84 to 116; Anticipated Achievement and the DIFF flag at seven or more points, 'below' and 'above'; no anticipated scores at kindergarten; DRC, TerraNova 3 CSP Edition Guide to Test Interpretation (2019): InView for grades 2 to 12 with its five tests, the Cognitive Skills Index, Anticipated Achievement scores when given with TerraNova, its uses for programme planning, diagnosis and screening for special programmes; Northbrook School District 27, TerraNova assessment page (the five sub-tests behind the CSI; TerraNova NEXT). Percentiles and stanines are the normal-curve reading of the scale. Fetched 11 November 2026.

Questions parents ask

1What is the InView test?

A group test of cognitive abilities for grades 2 to 12 from Data Recognition Corporation (DRC), earlier from CTB/McGraw-Hill, given with the TerraNova achievement test (now TerraNova NEXT). It measures the reasoning skills most related to school success in five tests and reports a Cognitive Skills Index; schools use it to compare what a child can reason with what the child achieved, and some use it for gifted screening.

2What are the five InView tests?

Verbal Reasoning–Words (relationships between words), Verbal Reasoning–Context (reasoning from a short passage), Sequences (finding the rule in a series of figures, letters or numbers), Analogies (completing a picture analogy) and Quantitative Reasoning (number relationships). Sequences, Analogies and Quantitative Reasoning make the non-verbal score; the two verbal tests make the verbal score; all five make the total.

3What is the Cognitive Skills Index?

The CSI is an age-dependent score from the InView total (or from the Primary Test of Cognitive Skills, PTCS, in kindergarten and grade 1) with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16, so DRC describes 84 to 116 as the average range; it is reported with a national percentile and a stanine. A CSI of 116 is about the 84th percentile, 124 about the 93rd and 132 about the 98th.

4What is the Anticipated Achievement score on a TerraNova report?

A prediction, from the child's InView result, of the score a child with that CSI typically gets on each TerraNova test; the report prints it beside the actual score as an NCE and flags DIFF when the two differ by seven or more points, with 'below' meaning the child achieved less than anticipated and 'above' meaning more. It is the report's way of separating 'can but did not' from 'did as expected'.

5What InView score is gifted?

The school or the state decides. Districts that use the InView for gifted screening commonly set the line at a CSI of about 127 or 128 (two standard deviations above the mean, the 96th to 97th percentile) or at the 97th percentile, often with achievement and other evidence; Ohio's approved-assessment list includes the InView for identifying superior cognitive ability under its own rule.

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

written by

Shobha

Founder and lead tutor, Science with Shobha

Teaching maths, science and English to children online since 2018. 500+ students, 20+ tutors, families in nine countries.

About the team →