What term describes how far a child's score on a standardized test is from the average score, in standard deviation units?

• A. Flesch
• B. Segmenting
• C. Standard score
• D. Standardized test

Answer: (C)

Focus on how scores are expressed relative to the test’s average. A standard score is a value that shows how far a student’s score sits from the mean, using the test’s standard deviation as the unit of distance. In other words, it tells you how many standard deviations above or below the average the score falls. This standardization lets you compare results across different tests or subtests because the scores are placed on a common scale. For example, many standardized scores have a fixed mean (often 100) and a fixed standard deviation (often 15), so a score of 115 would be one standard deviation above the mean. The other terms listed don’t describe this idea: Flesch measures readability, segmenting is a phonemic skill, and a standardized test refers to the test itself rather than the score.