All Collections
Amplify Science
Amplify Science grades 6–8
Editable Assessments in Amplify Science 6–8
Editable Assessments in Amplify Science 6–8

Can I edit the Pre-, Critical Juncture, or End-of-Unit Assessments?

Updated over a week ago

Every core unit of Amplify Science 6–8 includes a Pre-Unit, Critical Juncture, and End-of-Unit Assessment. These assessments are quite different from traditional multiple-choice tests. Rather than testing recall of isolated facts, the questions are designed to work together to assess the deep, explanatory understanding called for in three-dimensional learning and described in each unit’s Progress Build. Additionally, each item on these assessments has been carefully crafted and is the product of prior research and classroom testing.

While the assessments are thoughtfully designed and we do recommend they are used as written within the program, there are circumstances where editing a unit assessment may be necessary, such as in the case of adhering to a student’s IEP. For those and other instances, Word document versions of all unit assessments are available in the Digital Resources areas of the lessons that contain them.

There are a number of factors that should be kept in mind when deciding whether to use the Word document versions of the assessments.

  • When taken digitally, the multiple-choice items are automatically scored and reports are generated to indicate a student’s understanding along the levels of the Progress Build. If using the Word document versions of the assessments, the auto-scoring and reporting features will be unavailable, as well as the feature that auto-groups students for the lesson after the Critical Juncture assessment. The assessment’s Scoring Guide, which can be used to hand-score the assessment when they are given on paper, may also be void if any of the questions are changed.

  • Your district administrators may have guidelines and/or preferences for how assessments are administered and tracked. Please follow any directives given to you by your administrators.

  • The goal of the unit assessments is to show where students fall along the Progress Build. To that end, each question in the assessment is targeted to address a specific level of the Progress Build by measuring students’ mastery of the specific concepts that comprise each level. You should therefore be careful not to change the intended Progress Build level of the question if editing any of the language within it. You can refer to the assessment’s Scoring Guide (also located in the lesson’s Digital Resources) for information on which Progress Build level each question is intended to assess as written.

  • In general, modifications to any assessment items may affect validity of the Amplify Science unit assessments.

Did this answer your question?