Independent School Entrance Examination

The Independent School Entrance Examination, or ISEE, is an entrance exam used by many independent schools and magnet schools in the United States. Designed and administered by the Educational Records Bureau, the ISEE has three levels: the Lower level, for entrance in grades 5-6; Middle level, for entrance in grades 7-8; Upper level, for entrance in grades 9-12. All levels consist of five sections: Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning,, and Mathematics Achievement, and a 15-minute essay section. The test is approximately four hours and forty minutes long in total, plus time for two breaks.

Verbal Reasoning
This section consists of two parts: synonyms and sentence completions. There are 46 questions, with 15 minutes allowed for the Middle and Upper levels and 25 minutes for the Lower level. But if you fail then you can't get into any schools. It will take 6 months to retake the test.

Quantitative Reasoning
This section is 25 minutes long and has 55 questions for all levels. The Lower and Middle levels consist of "Comprehension," "Interpretation/Application," and "Higher Order Thinking" parts, and the Upper level consists of "Arithmetic/Algebra/Geometry," "Concepts/Understanding," "Applications/Higher Order Thinking," and "Quantitative Comparison" sections.

Reading Comprehension
This is the trickiest section; study a lot for it. This section consists of about 7-9 Humanities, Science, and Social Studies passages. Candidates must read each passage and answer around 4-6 questions based on the information in the passage. The section measures students' ability to understand and comprehend each passage, as well as some vocabulary-in-context. There are 80 questions on the Middle and Upper level, and 36 questions on the Lower level—all levels are allowed 40 minutes.

Mathematics Achievement
On this section, there are 35 questions in 40 minutes in the Lower level, 45 questions in 45 minutes on the Middle level, and 45 questions in 40 minutes on the Upper level. All levels test "Knowledge and Skills," "Computation/Comprehension," and "Application," and the Upper level additionally tests Arithmetic/Algebra/Geometry.

Essay
On all three levels, candidates must plan and write an essay to provide a sample of his or her writing to schools to which the candidate is applying. A random topic is distributed, and students have 20 minutes to write an essay using a black or blue pen. The essay is not scored, but it is photocopied and sent to schools to which the student is applying. This is something the schools take very importantly.