PSAE Study Guide

The Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE) offered by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) measures a student in grade 11’s academic abilities in reading, math, science, and English.

The PSAE is required of all Illinois high school students in order to receive a diploma. The test measures a student’s academic ability and measures the student body as a whole to ensure the school and educators have the students up to Illinois Learning Standards.

The PSAE is comprised of three main components: the ACT plus Writing, an ISBE developed science portion, and two WorkKey assignments that measure math. The first portion, the ACT plus Writing, may be the most important to many students. The ACT is the full ACT exam used by many colleges and universities as an admission requirement. The ACT is broken into four multiple choice question sections, including Math, Science, English, and Reading. The student will receive scores related to each section.

The ACT allows students to forego testing at a later date, or gives them an early start on their subsequent retest. The ACT stores can be chosen by a parent or eligible student to be added to transcripts when applying for schools or it can be left off entirely.

The PSAE is administered over a two day period, during a normal school day. Students will be first asked to tackle the ACT then move into the other two test segments. The PSAE is only offered to 11th grade students in the later part of their Spring semester, typically in April.

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PSAE Study Guide