Official Site of The State of New Jersey
NJSLA-Mathematics Companion Guide
The New Jersey Student Learning Assessment for Mathematics (NJSLA-M) measures student proficiency with grade or course level skills, knowledge, practices, and concepts that are critical to college and career readiness. On each assessment, students will face a mixture of objective items assessing content and practice and constructed-response items requiring the application of grade or course appropriate reasoning and modeling.
The assessment will support an overall scale score and four subclaim performance indicators consistent with the scale score and the four subclaim performance indicators as provided in past administrations. Test items on the NJSLA-M will be drawn from the same item bank as previous state assessments.
On the NJSLA-M, subclaim categories will remain Major Content, Additional and Supporting Content, Reasoning, and Modeling. All performance indicators will continue to accurately reflect student achievement of the corresponding evidence statements. Further, the overall scale score will continue to be categorized into one of the five existing performance levels:
- Did Not Yet Meet Expectations,
- Partially Met Expectations,
- Approached Expectations,
- Met Expectations,
- Exceeded Expectations.
Every mathematics grade and end-of-course NJSLA will have a mix of Type I, II, and III items.
Type I
Type I items are machine scored and are worth 1, 2, or 4 points. Type I items assess Major, Additional, or Supporting Content.
- Multiple Choice: traditional four answer choice
- Multiple Select: more than four answer choices with one or more correct answer(s). To score correctly a student must select all correct answer choices and no incorrect answer choices.
- Drag and Drop
- In Line Drop Down
- Hot Spot Graphing: number line and coordinate plane
- Equation Editor: student provides answer. Scoring can account for differing forms of correct answer.
Type II
Type II items must have a hand-scored student-generated answer component and are worth 3 or 4 points. Type II items assess Mathematical Reasoning. Partial credit may be awarded for partially correct reasoning.
Type III
Type III items must have a hand-scored student-generated answer component and are worth 3 or 6 points. Type III items assess Mathematical Modeling Processes. Partial credit may be awarded for an incomplete modeling process.
Grades 3—5
The grades 3 through 5 NJSLA-M are non-calculator. Each unit will have a mix of Type I, II, and III items. See Table 1 for unit times for grades 3 through 5.
Table 1: Grades 3—5 Unit Times
| Unit | Time (minutes) |
|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 60 |
| Unit 2 | 60 |
| Unit 3 | 60 |
Grades 6—8
The grades 6 through 8 NJSLA-M have a mix of non-calculator and calculator active items. Non-calculator Type I items will appear in a Section at the beginning of Unit 1. The remaining Type I and all Type II and III items will appear in calculator active sections/units. See Table 2 for unit times for grades 6 through 8.
Table 2: Grades 6—8 Unit Times
| Unit | Time (minutes) |
|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 60 |
| Unit 2 | 60 |
| Unit 3 | 60 |
High School
The high school/end-of-course assessments (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II) have a mix of non-calculator and calculator active items. Non-calculator Type I items will appear in a section at the beginning of Unit 1. The remaining Type I and all Type II and Type III items will appear in calculator active sections/units. See Table 3 for unit times for high school/end-of-course assessments.
Table 3: High School Unit Times
| Unit | Time (minutes) |
|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 90 |
| Unit 2 | 90 |
Practice tests and released items can be found at mypearsonsupport.com: