Feature Articles > School Systems, Curriculum and Exams > Interpreting Exam Results, Abbreviations, Ages and Stages

Every school system and country has its own set of national or standardised exams. Most use them as at least one qualification for moving on to the next schooling level or getting into post-secondary education. We're in the process of decoding the most commonly used exams in English-speaking school systems by breaking them into system-based articles with abbreviations, full names, information on how to understand the scoring systems, and how to interpret ranges or averages mentioned in this Guide.

Expect to find at least some information about (among others)

• GCSE (UK)
• A Level (UK)
• IB Diploma
• SAT (UK)
• SAT (USA)
• PSAT (USA)
• HSC (Australian)
• French Bac

If you have a question about a system or exam, and we haven't covered it yet, contact us. If we have a draft in preparation, we'll send you what we have. If we don't, we'll swing the giant search light of our attention around to that one and get started.

Interpreting Exam Scores

Typically, if there is a reason why a good school has oddly low averages on a standardised test, we try to discover why. It's usually because they are including the averages or scores of their ESL students, who are taking tests that are not only written in English but may have subtle cultural biases. Or the students might have all had a major disruption (fire, war, coup d'etat, collapsing ceiling from a major plumbing leak) the week before the exams, and the school has scrambled to maintain normalcy and go on with the scheduled tests.

This section should tell you what a score means...the highest a student can make, and what questions to ask about anomalies. Some tests even have the same name (notably "SAT": the American one is pronounced by its initials, and does not bear the remotest connection to the British SAT, which is pronounced like something you do to a chair).  All of these confusing questions are either answered by us, or links are provided for you to find more information. If you have other questions, please contact us and we'll try to find the answers.