SHSAT 2026 digital exam, timing and admissions guide

English Language Arts

What it tests: standalone revision/editing: sentence boundaries, grammar, usage and conventions; contextual draft revision: precise expression, relevance, organization, coherence and transitions; reading comprehension: central ideas, evidence, inference, vocabulary in context, structure, purpose and literary effects.

Task formats: multiple choice; fill in the blank and applicable technology-enhanced response; passage sets with revisable responses before set submission.

Read the relevant passage or draft before choosing. You can revisit answers within the current unfinished passage set. Once that set is submitted, those responses are locked. Standalone items lock after advancing; an entire subject locks when submitted. Follow each task’s selection or entry instructions.

Mathematics

What it tests: ratios and proportional relationships; rational numbers, expressions, equations and inequalities; statistics, probability and data interpretation; geometry and measurement; Grade 9 extensions through Grade 8 standards, including linear functions/systems, exponents, transformations and related geometry.

Task formats: four-choice selected response; numeric or mathematical entry with equation editor where provided; multiple response, table grid and applicable graph/placement interactions.

No calculator. Read units, constraints, diagram labels and the requested response form. You must answer before advancing and cannot return after advancing. Grade 8 forms use mathematics standards through Grade 7; Grade 9 forms through Grade 8. Both require familiar skills applied to complex problems.

Breaks and navigation

• Before starting, choose the subject in which you plan to begin. Finish that subject before switching; a submitted subject cannot be reopened.
• Answer each item before advancing. Review a standalone ELA or math response while it is on screen. There is no later skip-and-return pass for those items.
• Within an ELA passage set, inspect the passage and all related tasks, and revisit responses before submitting the set. Treat set submission as the last check for evidence, selected-set cardinality and entries.
• Approved extended time totals 360 testing minutes. The guide schedules breaks after 180 minutes and after another 90 minutes; the assessment page describes two 15-minute breaks for ELL extended time. Follow the assigned accommodation and proctor’s instructions. Do not invent an ordinary pause control for the operational exam.
• Official timed practice cannot be paused and autosubmits at the time limit. Use its untimed version when you need interruptions or explanation review. Local learning practice may offer review or saved attempts; those conveniences do not establish TestNav navigation fidelity.

Calculators and permitted tools

• Calculators, calculator watches and smartwatches are prohibited. The school provides the testing computer and scrap paper; personal computers are prohibited.
• Learn the equation editor: the guide identifies it as the entry tool for some math responses. A plain numeric field is useful concept practice but does not reproduce the official palette.
• Available digital tools include highlighting, answer elimination, notepad, pencil drawing and line reader mask, plus zoom and accessibility supports. The guide distinguishes ELA notes, which remain accessible across that section, from the Mathematics notepad, which refreshes for each item. Decide which tools help you without adding avoidable time.
• Know applicable terms and formulas. The guide states definitions and formula explanations will not be supplied; learn units and conditions with the formula rather than memorizing an unexplained symbol string.

How scoring works

• The adaptive system uses correct/incorrect response patterns in relation to item difficulty, with estimates updating after individual responses or passage-set responses. A more difficult-looking screen is not a reliable personal score report.
• Each subtest’s performance is standardized to a scaled score, and scaled ELA + scaled Math yields the composite used for rank ordering. The inspected current sources do not publish a raw-correct conversion that could validate a practice score calculator.
• Course tools can add the two reported scaled subtest scores and calculate an arithmetic gap to a target you choose on the same score-reporting scale. These operations do not predict an offer or convert raw practice accuracy. Practice percentage describes only the fixed items attempted; it is not an official score, percentile or admission chance.
• Offers proceed in descending SHSAT score order and consider school preferences and remaining seats. List schools in your actual preference order. A historical lowest qualifying score describes the prior cohort; it is not a fixed minimum for the upcoming adaptive administration.
• LaGuardia does not use SHSAT admissions. Its audition and academic requirements must be checked separately.

What happens on test day

• Check the ticket and school instructions for your assigned test date, location and arrival time. School day examinees normally arrive at the regular school time unless instructed otherwise. Weekend ticket time is an arrival time; the guide warns the test may start substantially later.
• The guide permits bringing a test ticket, pencils/eraser, highlighter, a silent non-calculator watch, water in a quiet container and a quiet unwrapped snack for before testing or approved breaks. Approved assistive technology shown on the IEP/ticket must be brought when instructed. The test ticket is listed as permitted rather than universally mandatory in this edition.
• Do not bring outside written materials, calculators, personal computers, cameras or prohibited wearables. Cellphones may enter the site only under its storage instructions: power off and keep them out of your hand, pocket and desk during testing.
• Before accepting the onscreen acknowledgement, confirm you are well enough, a NYC resident and taking the correct grade level. Tell the proctor immediately if ill or if the computer/test causes a problem.
• Enter every answer in the digital form. Scrap-paper work is collected and is not scored. Stop responding and using tools when time ends or the proctor tells you to stop.
• Report suspected testing irregularities immediately to the proctor. The guide also gives a family reporting process to HSEnrollment@schools.nyc.gov within one week after the test date. Consult the current guide for the complete process.

Registration and retakes

• As checked October 3, 2026, the official enrollment page’s Happening Now block schedules registration opening Tuesday October 6 and closing Friday October 30. School day testing is Wednesday November 18; weekend dates are November 14, 15, and 21. Assigned sites and individual tickets control where/when a student actually tests.
• Check MySchools and your school counselor for registration, school preferences and assigned arrangements. The enrollment page says additional weekend site and digital readiness information will follow; a draft course cannot supply an unannounced individual site.
• Eligibility is current NYC residency and current eighth grade or first-time ninth grade. Students at public, private/parochial, charter schools or homeschooling must follow their assigned testing route.
• Grade 8 students may have a later first-time Grade 9 opportunity; Grade 9 students have no further SHSAT opportunity after Grade 9 under the guide’s misconduct/retest discussion. Do not interpret the daily practice reset as an official retake policy.
• The enrollment page contains an outdated lower subsection saying the 2027 guide is in development. The current assessment page already links the dated 2027 guide. This course uses the latter for format and the enrollment page’s current Happening Now block for dates.

Accommodations

• Discuss accommodations with the school well before testing. Approved IEP/504 accommodations apply unless the SHSAT design makes them unnecessary or disallows the particular support; do not self-assign extra time.
• ELLs and eligible former ELLs receive extended time, translated directions, translated ELA footnotes and bilingual glossaries. Test questions themselves are not translated. Students may not bring their own bilingual glossary. Confirm language availability with the school.
• Text to speech in official practice/operational testing is for students with an approved IEP/504 accommodation. The SHSAT has no extended response section, so ordinary speech-to-text essay practice is not a required exam family.
• Universal features such as zoom, highlighting and note-taking are available broadly. Approved read aloud, breaks and magnification can be supplied through the testing platform. Individual paper access remains an accommodation exception.

How to prepare

• Begin with separate diagnostics in ELA and math. Record the tested action, reason for error and time, rather than inferring admissions readiness from a combined fixed practice percentage.
• For comprehension, write the claim demanded by the task and locate supporting lines/paragraphs. Test close alternatives against scope and emphasis. Read full passages; isolated premise exercises cannot train sustained evidence tracking.
• For contextual revision, identify the draft’s purpose and the relationship between neighboring sentences before choosing a transition, placement or deletion. A grammatical sentence can still fail organization or relevance.
• For mathematics, model the situation with labeled quantities, exact arithmetic and constraints. Check units, fraction direction and whether the result satisfies all givens. Grade 9 students should add through Grade 8 standards while retaining the Grade 8 core.
• Use original fixed practice to learn, then try official timed full forms for 180-minute planning. The official practice summary identifies correct/incorrect items; save it before leaving, and use the matching appendix. Equation-editor items may need the appendix or embedded exhibit to review the key.
• Use the official SRT to explore controls before test day. Its sample items demonstrate features and do not represent SHSAT content. The illustrative TEI overview likewise cannot calibrate difficulty.
• Review the starting-subject decision using real timed practice. A 90/90 split is a trial budget; passage-reading, harder items and your subject profile may justify a different plan. The current assessment page cautions against assuming rushed guessing to finish is better than a careful best attempt.

Details to confirm

• This course is fixed practice, not calibrated CAT or an official score/admissions simulator. Unimplemented equation editor, drag and drop, hot text/hot spot, inline choice and graph/shape/solution-set interfaces are explicitly tracked in the coverage matrix.
• The TEI overview does not specify how many of each interaction occur, exact scored item weights or a grade-specific frequency blueprint. No such proportions are invented.
• Student timing, discrimination and ability calibration require external testing; editorial difficulty labels are hypotheses.
• Dates, accommodations and sites can change; use the linked official sources and assigned ticket. Research was checked October 3, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• SHSAT preparation
• Daily practice
• Score tools
• Practice tests