Scoring for the SHSAT is a little strange. It's not that the
scoring is difficult to understand, it's just that individual
scores only matter to the extent that they are above or below a
cutoff line.
Here's how the scoring works. First, you get a "raw score"
based on the number of questions you answer correctly. You get
two points for every correct Scrambled Paragraph and one point
for every other correct answer you mark on your answer grid.
Since there are five Scrambled Paragraphs and ninety other
questions on the test, the highest possible "raw score" is
100.
Next, your raw score is multiplied by a formula known only to
the Board of Education to arrive at a scaled score. The Board of
Education gives you a scaled score for each section and a
composite score for the entire test. The highest possible
composite score is 800.
Admission is based solely on your composite score. The way
this works is that all of the students are ranked from high score
to low score and then assigned to the school of their first
preference until all available seats are filled. For example, if
Stuyvesant had exactly 500 spaces available and the top 500
scorers all picked Stuyvesant as their first choice, all 500
scorers would be admitted. If the 501st scorer listed Stuyvesant
as her first choice and Bronx Science as her second choice, she
would be assigned to Bronx Science.
In other words, if 500 students were admitted to Stuyvesant
and the 500th highest score was 560, then 560 would be the
"cutoff" score for Stuyvesant. Therefore, scores are relative; it
matters only whether they are above the cutoff, but there is no
way of accurately knowing what the cutoff score will be. All you
know is that it will likely be a little higher than last year's
cutoff because the test becomes increasingly competitive each
year.
