The HSPT: what to know
High School Placement Test, published by Scholastic Testing Service. Every answer below is quoted from the publisher’s own materials.
- How many questions are on the HSPT?
- 298 questions, in five subtests: Verbal Skills 60, Quantitative Skills 52, Reading 62, Mathematics 64, Language 60. Scholastic Testing Service publishes the whole make-up on a sample score report, and the item numbers a proctor reads aloud confirm it independently. The standard working time for the battery is 143 minutes.
- How long is the HSPT?
- 143 minutes of timed work: Verbal Skills 18, Quantitative Skills 30, Reading 25, Mathematics 45, Language 25 minutes. Breaks are not part of that — five minutes after Quantitative Skills and about two after Mathematics. Note the first figure: prep sites print 16 minutes for Verbal Skills, and Scholastic Testing Service’s own administration manual says 18, twice, and has the proctor announce “You have 9 minutes remaining”.
- What subtests are on the HSPT?
- Five: Verbal Skills, Quantitative Skills, Reading, Mathematics and Language. Every one of them has original practice questions here.
- When is the HSPT?
- Scholastic Testing Service sets no central date for the HSPT: each diocese schedules its own sitting and publishes it itself, so the date to trust is the one on the letter from the school your child is applying to.
- How much does the HSPT cost?
- The fee is set by the diocese, not by Scholastic Testing Service, so there is no single figure. One published example, from Scholastic Testing Service’s own registration portal, is $45 for the Archdiocese of Baltimore — that is one diocese and it must not be read as the price anywhere else.
- Can you use a calculator on the HSPT?
- No. Scholastic Testing Service’s administration manual states that calculators are not permitted in Mathematics, and repeats it as a note to the person running the room. Quantitative Skills is mental arithmetic and reasoning about sequences and comparisons, so nothing in the paper is written expecting one.
Free practice: 298 original questions, marked as they are answered, with every wrong choice explained, at https://catholicschoolprep.com/hspt. No account and nothing collected from a child.
Catholic School Prep. HSPT is a trademark of Scholastic Testing Service, Inc., which does not endorse and is not affiliated with this product. All practice questions here are original.