HSPT-Prep-and-HSPT-Tutoring

The High School Placement Test (HSPT) and helpful ways to prepare

The High School Placement Test (HSPT) is an exam often used by private schools and private Catholic schools, to assess a middle school student’s performance, and to determine which school is the best academic fit for that student.

How Top Test Prep can help students with the HSPT:

Our instructors are trained and understand the High School Placement test, including all parts of the test such as the quantitative, math, reading, and language portions of the HSPT.

Our High School Placement Test (HSPT) tutoring programs

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We also have private school admissions counselors who can help you get into top private, Catholic schools: find out more here private school admissions consulting.

What is the HSPT exam?

The High School Placement Test (HSPT) is used by many Catholic schools as an admissions test and as a placement test within their schools. This test is only administered to 8th grade students entering 9th grade. The HSPT is developed by Scholastic Testing Service (STS) and is sometimes referred to as the STS exam or STS-HSPT.

Each school administers their own HSPT exam, unlike the SSAT or ISEE.

What’s on the HSPT Exam?

The HSPT consists of at least 298 multiple-choice questions in five sections: verbal skills (synonyms, antonyms, analogies); quantitative skills (series, geometric comparisons, non-geometric comparisons, number manipulations); reading comprehension; math (arithmetic, basic algebra and elementary geometry); and language skills (grammar and composition). The HSPT is approximately 140 minutes long, but may vary depending on the “optional” sections each particular school chooses to add.

How is the HSPT Exam scored?

HSPT scores are reported on a 200 to 800 scale. Wrong answers do not count against the score, so students should never leave a question blank. Guess! STS adds up correct answers to obtain a raw score, and then converts this to a scaled score to adjust for small variations in difficulty among different test forms.

The HSPT does not release score-percentile ratios.

Can my child take the HSPT more than once?

The HSPT should only be taken once by each student. In the event a student does take the test more than once, the lower score is considered his/her score.

May I use a calculator on the HSPT Exam?

No.

Is there a passing or failing grade on the HSPT?

There is no passing or failing grade. Each Catholic high school sets its own standards for admissions.

Our full test preparation and private tutoring programs for the HSPT help students get into private schools in several cities like Washington DC, Bethesda, Rockville, Potomac, Fairfax, Arlington, McLean, to New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Miami.