HSPT
High School Placement Test — used by Catholic dioceses outside the three New York ones, each of which sets its own date.
Not sure where to start?
Three questions from each of the five sections, marked and explained as you go. At the end it names the section to open first and the topics that caught your child out — not a score, which nothing this short could honestly give.
Start on a subtest
298 questions to practice on, and 298 more held back so the paper can ask something practice never has.
Quantitative Skills
104Sequences to continue, word arithmetic, and quantities to compare.
Start practicingReading
124Passages written for this product, with questions about detail, purpose, inference and a word in context.
Start practicingThe whole paper, as its publisher prints it
Scholastic Testing Service puts the make-up of the HSPT on a sample score report that anyone can download, down to the count for each skill area. Every figure below is transcribed from it, and a check in the build refuses to run if the areas stop adding up to their subtest.
Verbal Skills
Verbal Classification 17 · Synonyms 13 · Logic 11 · Analogy 10 · Antonyms 9
Quantitative Skills
Sequence 15 · Reasoning 15 · Non-Geometric Comparison 12 · Geometric Comparison 10
Reading
Comprehension: Informational Text 30 · Vocabulary 22 · Comprehension: Literary Text 10
Mathematics
Numbers & Numeration 29 · Geometry 12 · Statistics & Probability 9 · Measurements 7 · Algebra 7
Language
Composition 20 · Incorrect Usage 15 · Punctuation 10 · Spelling 10 · Correct Usage 3 · Capitalization 2
This is the whole difference between the two halves of this site.
Riverside publishes none of the above for the TACHS — no question count, no time limit, not one skill area. So our HSPT mock is the real shape and our TACHS mock is a shape of ours, and each page says which it is rather than letting you assume.
The mock paper
298 questions in 143 minutes, the shape Scholastic Testing Service publishes, and the paper hands itself in when the time runs out.
Or let it decide what to practice
Ten questions a day, chosen from what your child has already answered: something they got wrong last week, then something they have never tried, then whatever has had the least attention. It keeps the list of questions still unfixed and brings them back until they are. No score is predicted and no mastery percentage is invented — it works the way a tutor with a notebook would.
Questions about the HSPT
Every figure below is Scholastic Testing Service's own, from the score report it publishes and the manual a proctor reads. Where the received wisdom differs from the manual, the answer says so.
- 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.
- How many answer choices does each HSPT question have?
- Four, in every subtest. They are lettered a–d with no alternation between rows. Every practice question here is lettered the way the paper letters it.
- Where can I find free HSPT practice questions?
- Here: 298 of the 596 original HSPT questions on this site are open for practice with no sign-up and no email, across five subtests. Each one is marked immediately and explains itself. The rest are held back for the full paper, so a mock is not made of questions already practiced.
Where these numbers come from
Every count on this page is read off the question banks themselves when the page is built, so none of them is typed and none can go stale. Every published fact is quoted from a document Scholastic Testing Service wrote, and each one is named on the sources page.