Inside an Algebra Readiness session
· 3 min read
An Algebra Readiness session is adaptive: the questions a student sees depend on the answers they’ve already given. Here’s what happens from start to finish.
It starts with a screener
Every session opens with a 15-question screener across the math domains Algebra Readiness covers. The screener gives the diagnostic a first estimate in each domain, so it knows where to look more closely.
Follow-ups go where they’re needed
Next come up to 25 targeted follow-up questions, focused on the domains where the diagnostic needs more information. After each answer, it updates its estimate and picks one of the questions expected to tell it the most. A domain it has already settled gets no more questions.
It stops when another question would add little
A session never runs past 40 questions, and it ends sooner once another question would add little precision. That’s why we don’t quote a typical session length: it depends on the student.
Every answer is evidence
A wrong answer is more than a missed point. Every wrong answer choice is tagged to a catalogued misconception, and typed and graphed answers are checked against common wrong answers that carry tags of their own. So a wrong answer that matches one of them points to a specific idea, such as treating a fraction as two separate whole numbers, rather than a general weakness. Read more in Every wrong answer means something.
What happens next
The diagnostic traces each student’s answers back through a map of the standards to the skill where prerequisites hold but understanding stops. Practice starts there. See From break point to practice.
A worked example
Imagine a fifth grader starting a session. The screener asks questions across the math domains, and their answers in most domains are clearly above the grade 5 range, but fractions are less clear. The follow-up questions go there. When they choose an answer that says one eighth is greater than one third, the choice they picked is tagged to a misconception: judging fractions by the size of the denominator.
A session ends when another question would add little precision, or at 40 questions. A domain whose answers are already clearly above or below its grade-level range gets no further questions, so the student’s time goes where it tells the diagnostic the most.
What students see
Students see one question at a time and answer in the format the question uses: choosing an answer, typing a number, selecting every answer that applies, or drawing on a graph. See Beyond multiple choice for how each format works.