The Vicksburg Catholic School received the results of its standardized testing for the 2022-2023 school year.

TerraNova

Jordan Amborn, VCS Director of Student Affairs, said that students in grades three through seven took the TerraNova test, which measures important foundational skills in word analysis, vocabulary, language mechanics, spelling and mathematics computation.

This was the first year the school used TerraNova.

“We were kind of nervous, honestly, taking Terranova this year because even though it’s not a new test, it was new to us,” Amborn said.

However, the average school results in all categories outperformed the national averages. The scores are represented as percentile points above the national average for the test.

Grade 3
Reading: 10
Language: 15
Math: 3

Grade 4
Reading: 11
Language: 16
Math: 21

Grade 5
Reading: 10
Language: 9
Math: 13

Grade 6
Reading: 13
Language: 9
Math: 14

Grade 7
Reading: 8
Language: 15
Math: 14

PreACT

Students in grades eight and nine take the PreACT assessment, an early practice exam for the ACT test. The school also uses it as an indicator of college and career readiness. Previously, those students took a similar test called the ACT Aspire, which is no longer produced.

The composite score for those students was 17.4, which happens to be the same as the statewide average of last year’s ACT scores.

“I knew our students would do well, but it really is very shocking in a good way to see that they’re already in eighth and ninth grade doing as well as the average ACT score of a high school graduate from last year in Mississippi,” Amborn said.

ACT

The ACT was taken by 11th and 12th graders at the school, with the students making a composite score of 21.9, compared to last year’s national average of 19.3 and state average of 17.4.

AP

Many students in AP courses also take AP exams, which are graded on a scale of one to five.

“(Regarding the AP) scores, I think those teachers are exceedingly proud of themselves and their students this year,” Amborn said. “Because if you look at those school and state and global averages, they really have exceeded those normal averages by a lot.”

Those scores are as follows:

AP Biology
School score: 3.28
Mississippi State Average: 2.31
Global average: 3.04

AP English Language and Composition (11th grade)
School score: 3.53
Mississippi State Average: 2.33
Global average: 2.82

AP English Literature and Composition (12th grade)
School score: 3.44
Mississippi State Average: 2.89
Global average: 3.26

“We are constantly looking at this data,” Amborn said. “We really do dissect it and look at it student by student, class by class and subject by subject to make sure that we’re meeting all those standards.”