Information and Credits

The free part of Problem-Attic continues to grow! There are now more than 290,000 questions on the site from many well-respected sources. We describe each of the sources below.

New York Regents

Problem-Attic incorporates more than 65,000 questions originally published by the NYS Education Department as Regents Examinations. These come from more than 1100 source documents, spanning about 35 years. They cover 11 Regents subjects altogether for Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, English Language Arts, and World Languages. Each Exam is presented in its entirety, with Spanish translations when available, and individual questions are organized topically.

The Regents Exams are one of the oldest continuously-running student assessments in the world. They have been administered since 1878! As of 2012, high school students in New York are required to receive a Regents Diploma and must therefore pass five of the exams in order to graduate.

Regents Exams, in their original form, are available at nysedregents.org and regents.nysed.gov.

State Assessments

Problem-Attic makes available approximately 88,000 test items from 27 states: AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NV, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, VT, WI and WV. Four of the states are in a consortium called New England Common Assessment Program. Their items are indexed using the abbreviation NECAP. Maine is part of NECAP and also produces some tests separately.

The states’ items come from 4000 source documents, including released tests, curriculum frameworks, and teacher handbooks. These span more than two decades of work on standards-based assessment and instruction. The items mostly cover mathematics, science and ELA, though an increasing number cover social studies. Each source document is presented in its entirety, and all of the items, except for ELA, are re-organized by topic. (For ELA, only reading passages are re-organized. Click here to learn more.)

The following is a summary of the state assessments. EducAide Software, which makes Problem-Attic, would like to thank the respective departments of education for granting permission to include their items.

†The Louisiana Department of Education is not in any way affiliated with EducAide Software and does not endorse, warrant or assume any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of the information contained on this website.

National / International Assessments

Problem-Attic includes questions from many prominent national and international assessments, including NAEP, TIMSS, PISA and UDAC. It also has five titles specifically for Common Core State Standards. Two of these, PARCC and SBAC, are assessment consortia. The other three, ATC, NJMC, and IM, provide examplary material for Common Core and are useful for both assessment and instruction.

What follows is a brief description of each database on the national and international panel, plus item counts and links to original sources.

NAEP – National Assessment of Educational Progress

NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. NAEP is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of American students and is popularized as “The Nation’s Report Card”. For more information, visit NCES and ies.ed.gov.

Problem-Attic has 4358 NAEP-released items, mainly for mathematics, social studies, and reading/writing, with a small number for science.

TIMSS – Trends in International Mathematics and Science

TIMSS is an international assessment of the mathematics and science knowledge of fourth and eighth graders and exiting secondary school students around the world. TIMSS is administered every four years. In 2015, over 60 nations, including the United States, and 580,000 students participated. TIMSS was developed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). For more information, visit IEA study center and timss2015.org.

Problem-Attic has 1551 TIMSS-released questions for mathematics and science.

PISA – Program for International Student Assessment

PISA is a worldwide study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Its purpose is to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old students' performance on mathematics, science, and reading. It was first administered in 2000 and then repeated every three years. PISA aims to provide comparable data so that participating countries can improve their education policies and outcomes. It measures problem-solving and cognition in daily life. For more information, visit www.oecd.org/pisa.

Problem-Attic contains 363 PISA-released items for mathematics, science and reading, with an additional category called “problem solving” which is somewhat multi-disciplinary.

UDAC – Urban District Assessment Consortium

UDAC was a cooperative effort between 11 large U.S. districts and the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy at Boston College. The goal was to develop and disseminate authentic-assessment instruments as alternatives to the traditional standardized tests for school-accountability purposes. While UDAC dates back to the early 90s, its questions have held up remarkably well and may be considered precursors to what are now called hands-on activities or performance tasks. Copies of the original UDAC assessments were preserved by EducAide Software (maker of Problem-Attic) and, to our knowledge, are not available on any other online site. Permission to republish was graciously given by Boston College.

Problem-Attic includes all 165 questions that appeared on UDAC elementary and middle school assessments, plus 165 matching questions in Spanish. These cover math, science, and reading/writing. Note: a few illustrations are missing from the source material; we’re still trying to track them down.

PARCC – Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

PARCC is a consortium of states and education agencies that is working to create and deploy a set of K-12 assessments in Mathematics and English based on the Common Core State Standards. PARCC was one of two consortia that got “Race To The Top” funds from the U.S. Department of Education in 2010. (The other is Smarter Balanced; see below.) PARCC assessments are now managed by Pearson Education. For more details, visit parcc.pearson.com.

Problem-Attic includes 2792 PARCC-released questions for mathematics and English/Literacy for grade 3 through high school. 320 of the math questions are translated into Spanish.

ATC – Achieve The Core

The ATC questions come from Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping teachers and school leaders implement high-quality, college- and career-ready standards. The development of the questions was funded in part by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the GE Foundation. Student Achievement Parters has put the questions in the public domain (but re-use here is governed by the Terms of Service). For more information, or to access the questions in their original form, visit achievethecore.org.

Problem-Attic includes 685 ATC questions for mathematics and ELA. These are organized around topics and literary themes, same as the the source documents.

NJMC – New Jersey Model Curriculum

NJMC questions come from a collaborative effort between the state's Department of Education and teachers, principals, district leaders, higher education faculty, and other experts in New Jersey and around the country. The purpose is to assist districts and schools with implementation of the Common Core State Standards and New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards. For more information, visit www.nj.gov/education/modelcurriculum.

Problem-Attic includes 2827 NJMC questions for mathematics, language arts, and social studies. 1154 of the math questions are available in both English and Spanish.

SBAC – Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

SBAC is one of two test consortia that received “Race To The Top” funds in 2010 to develop tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards. (PARCC is the other test consortia; see above.) As of this writing, SBAC has 20 member states or affiliates. The tests that it produces are delivered fully online with many interactive or “technology enhanced” items.

Problem-Attic includes 1698 SBAC questions for mathematics and language arts. Nearly all of the “technology enhanced items” have been adapted for PDF documents, so you can use them for printed tests, discussion, review, etc. A small number that require a web-based “applet” are not in Problem-Attic's database.

IM – Illustrative Mathematics

Illustrative Mathematics is based at the University of Arizona and headed by William McCallum, one of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards. Described as “a community of educators dedicated to the coherent learning of mathematics”, Illustrative Mathematics has produced an “extensive and carefully vetted collection of instructional and assessment tasks that have been aligned with CCSS.” Part of the collection has been released under the CC-BY license, and those questions are re-publshed here in a slightly modified form for PDF documents. (Re-use through Problem-Attic is governed by its Terms of Service, not the CC-BY license.) For more information or to access the original questions, visit illustrativemathematics.org and im.openupresources.org.

Problem-Attic includes 3271 IM questions. They are all for middle school grades 6–8 and are divided into units/lessons, same as on the Open Up Resources teacher pages.

Academic Competitions

Problem-Attic incorporates nearly 11,000 math contest questions from Western Carolina University, NCCTM, and UNC-Charlotte. Problem-Attic includes 307 of their contests which span more than 30 years. Each contest is presented in its entirety, and individual items are topically organized.

WCU has been administering its High School Math Contest since 1970. NCCTM has been administering the State Math Contest since 1979. UNC-Charlotte, under the direction of Harold Reiter, has been administering its High School Math Contest since 1980. These contests stimulate interest in mathematics through collegial competition, encourage participants to think of their futures beyond high school, and honor those students who demonstrate outstanding mastery of mathematics.

EducAide Software is grateful to the WCU Math and Science Department, the NCCTM contest committee, and the UNC-Charlotte Department of Math and Statistics, for granting permission to include the questions.

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