PARCC ELA/Literacy Specifications (Updated and Refined 2014)

Over the course of the year and as a result of lessons learned from the extensive PARCC field test, PARCC has updated and refined several key ELA/literacy specifications. The updated specifications documents will help educators and the general public better understand the refinements to the design of the ELA/literacy summative assessments.

The specifications updated include:

PARCC ELA/Literacy Combined Common Forms Specifications

  • In order to reduce testing time yet maintain integrity in measuring the CCSS, the PARCC Common Forms Specification have been refined.
  • The Mid-Year, Performance-Based, and End-of-Year forms specifications have been combined.
  • The list of Task Generation Models in the PBA Forms Specifications has been updated to reflect newly added Task Generation Models.
  • Point totals have been adjusted to reflect changes made to the Scoring Rubrics and the reduction of passage sets on the End-of-Year forms specifications.

PARCC Evidence Tables for ELA/literacy (Reading)

  • Evidence statements that apply only to the Diagnostic assessment were added. These evidence statements are clearly labeled as “For Diagnostic Only.”
  • A small number of evidence statements were combined to allow for more accurate alignment of items to the CCSS.

Task Models for ELA/literacy

  • A few task models were added to account for viable, engaging, and CCSS-aligned tasks brought forward during the first phases of item development.
  • A few task models were modified to account for lessons learned during the first phases of item development.

Passage Selection and Item Guidelines

  • The Passage Selection and Item Guidelines documents were updated to reflect changes made to the ELA/literacy specifications documents.

PARCC has released a set of test specification documents, including assessment blueprints and evidence statement tables, to help educators and the general public better understand the design of the PARCC assessments.

  • Blueprintsare a series of documents that together describe the content and structure of an assessment. These documents define the total number of tasks and/or items for any given assessment component, the standards measured, the item types, and the point values for each
  • Evidence statement tables and evidence statementsdescribe the knowledge and skills that an assessment item or a task elicits from students. These are aligned directly to the Common Core State Standards, and highlight their advances especially around the coherent nature of the standards.

You can view and download several sets of specifications for the PARCC assessments in English language arts/literacy and mathematics including, ELA/literacy form specifications, passage selections guidance and rubrics, and mathematics evidence statementtables.

Two content-specific PowerPoints have been developed to provide overviews of various specifications and to assist in interpreting the information included in them. ELA/literacy has two additional PowerPoints that will guide viewers through thepassage selection guidelines and evidencetables.

Please consult the FAQs for answers to general questions about the test specifications documents, including the development process and how they can be used.