Standard Scores

Suppose you took a math test and learned that your score was a 47. How would you know if that was a “good” [Page 940]score? One of the things you might want to know is the range of scores that was possible for the test. Most people would consider a score of 47 on a test with a maximum possible score of 50 better than a 47 on a test with a maximum possible score of 100. A different approach would be to see how your score compared to that of others. For a test on which scores of 0–80 were possible, you might feel better about a score of 47 if you learned that the average score was 42 than if it was 62. ...