Released Assessment Questions

After each round of assessment, PIRLS releases to the public actual reading passages from the last assessment, the test questions (or “items”) associated with those passages, and the scoring guides for those test questions. These released items from PIRLS can be used by educators in any number of ways:

• To inform discussions about your schools' reading curriculum;
• To explore the links between concepts you teach and ways to measure students' understanding;
• To design your own assessment according to your needs; and
• To reflect on the performance of your students in comparison to the performance of students in other countries, including the United States.

After the 2006 PIRLS assessment, 4 reading passages and 49 test questions with their answers (provided in the scoring guides) were released. Two of the reading passages were used to assess students’ reading for literary experience, and two were used to assess students' reading to acquired and use information.

Grade 4 - Reading (files contain items and scoring guides)

Complete PIRLS reading items (1,716 KB) contains all grade 4 reading items released from 2006 and scoring guides.

PIRLS reading (literary) Antarctica: Land of Ice (460 KB) Searching for Food (696 KB)

PIRLS reading (informational) Little Lump of Clay (358 KB) An Unbelievable Night (562 KB)

Each passage and the test questions associated with it are presented separately from the scoring guide, making them ready for photocopying.

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