SHSAT practice tests, 2026
New York City publishes four full-length practice tests, free, in the same interface your child will meet on test day — and a printable PDF of each, with the answers explained. Every link below was opened on September 22, 2026.
4
full-length official tests
Practice Tests A, B, C and D, published by New York City Public Schools for students sitting the exam in grade 8 this fall. The city states that two of the four carry new content this year; it does not say which two. Ninth-graders get a separate mini form, to be used alongside these.
50
items in each section
The same count on the practice tests and on the real exam — 50 in English Language Arts, 50 in Mathematics. We checked it inside the printable form: Math runs Item 1 to Item 50, and ELA is 46 items across seven passage sets plus 4 stand-alone items.
180
minutes, timed version
Three hours for both sections together, the standard administration time. The timed practice test submits itself when the clock runs out and it cannot be paused, so it is worth starting one only when three uninterrupted hours exist.
360
minutes, untimed version
The untimed form simulates the six-hour extended-time administration. It is also the one to choose for a first pass, when a child is reading the explanations as they go rather than racing anything.
If a practice book you own says 57 questions a section, it is out of date. That figure belongs to the old paper SHSAT. The city publishes 50 per section for this administration, and the printable forms confirm it item by item. The whole format of the 2026 exam changed this year, and a book printed before it teaches a pacing strategy that no longer exists.
The four official tests
Each form exists three ways: online in the real test interface, as a printable PDF of the whole paper, and as an Explanations Appendix that gives the reasoning behind every correct answer. The online versions are served from the city’s portal, which asks first whether you want the timer and whether to start with ELA or with Mathematics.
Practice Test A
50 ELA items · 50 mathematics items · 180 minutes timed
The city has revised this form — its files carry the “revised” marker.
Practice Test B
50 ELA items · 50 mathematics items · 180 minutes timed
Practice Test C
50 ELA items · 50 mathematics items · 180 minutes timed
Practice Test D
50 ELA items · 50 mathematics items · 180 minutes timed
The Student Readiness Tool
A tutorial that walks through the interface itself — the navigation bar, the equation editor, the highlighter, the note-taking tools — without any exam content. Twenty minutes here removes most of what is unfamiliar on test day.
Open the readiness tutorial →The grade 9 mini form
First-time ninth-graders sit the same exam. The city publishes a shorter form of items aligned to the standards through grade 8, and says it should be used together with the grade 8 practice tests, not instead of them. Two mathematics explanation documents come with it.
Grade 9 tab on the portal →The summer forms
Two additional forms, A and B, with their own explanation documents, sit under a separate tab. They are extra material once the four main tests have been used — not a replacement for them.
Summer Test tab on the portal →The city’s own handbook
The NYC Guide to the SHSAT for 2027 Admissions carries sample questions with worked answer explanations, the list of what a student may and may not bring, and the test-day tips. It is the document our most-read SHSAT page takes apart section by section.
NYC Guide to the SHSAT (PDF) →What a practice test rehearses this year — and what it cannot
This is the first computer-adaptive administration of the SHSAT. That changes what these four forms are good for, and it is worth knowing before the first one is opened.
A practice test is a fixed form. The real exam is not.
From this fall the SHSAT is computer-adaptive: it re-estimates a score after every response and can serve a harder or an easier question next. The four practice tests are fixed forms — every child sees the same items in the same order. They rehearse the content, the interface and the pacing faithfully. They cannot rehearse the feeling of a test that reacts to you.
The old skip-and-return plan does not survive.
A student must answer each question before advancing. Inside an open ELA passage set they can go back and change answers; once that set is submitted it closes, and in Mathematics and for stand-alone ELA items there is no return at all. Practising on paper, where flagging and coming back is free, quietly trains the wrong habit.
A run of hard questions is not bad news.
Because the exam adapts, difficulty rising is often a sign that answers have been landing. Children who have never been told this read it as failure in the middle of the section and lose the rest of it. Say it before the morning of the test, not after.
Do at least one online, whatever else you do.
The city offers translated directions and footnotes in twelve languages, a choice of starting section, and timed or untimed. Text-to-speech and the translated forms are for students with the matching accommodation on an IEP, a 504 plan, or ELL status; everyone else should practise on the plain English form, because that is what will appear on test day.
How to read the result
When a child submits an online practice test they get a summary report listing which items were answered correctly and which were not. Print it or save it as a PDF before leaving the page — it does not come back. Read it next to the Explanations Appendix for that form, question by question, and the pattern usually appears within twenty minutes: it is almost never “maths” or “English” in general, it is three or four specific item types.
What that report does not give you is a SHSAT score, and nobody can honestly convert it into one. On the real exam every item carries a difficulty parameter, the performance score comes from the pattern of right and wrong answers against those difficulties, and the city publishes no table from raw count to scaled score. Anyone selling you that conversion has invented it.
The number that is real, and public, is the other end: the lowest composite score that actually received an offer at each of the eight testing schools last year. That is the target, it differs by school and by grade, and it is the only figure worth putting on the fridge.
Put a score against the eight schools
Enter a composite and see, school by school, where it would have fallen against last year’s lowest qualifying score — for ninth grade and for tenth grade, with the offer numbers beside them. Nothing is estimated: a score the city has not published shows as not published.
Calculate the composite against all eight schools →Four tests, and a season that is already open
Four full-length forms is not many. Spending them all in one fortnight wastes three of them, and keeping them for the last week wastes the diagnostic. Here is the spacing that works with the dates the city has published.
Now, before registration closes
Run the readiness tutorial and one untimed test, side by side with the Explanations Appendix. This first one is not a measurement — it is a tour. Note only which of the two sections drains the clock.
Registration: October 6 to October 30
The high school application opens Tuesday, October 6 and SHSAT registration closes Friday, October 30. Nothing about practice replaces this deadline, and a missed registration ends the year.
Between registration and the exam
Two timed tests, three uninterrupted hours each, in the order the child intends to use on the day — ELA first or Math first, decided in advance and rehearsed, not improvised at the desk.
The week before
The fourth form, timed, and then stop. Use the last days on the items already answered wrong, not on new ones. Test dates: the weekend administration falls on Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15; School Day is Wednesday, November 18; the last weekend test date is Saturday, November 21.
Full calendar, including what the city has not announced yet: SHSAT test dates 2026. Registering is a separate step with its own deadline: how to register through MySchools.
Take the next step
Your child took one. Now what?
Tell us which form your child sat and what the summary report showed, and we will come back with what it says about the weeks that are left. If that turns into sessions at 928 Broadway, good; if it turns into a short list to drill at home, that is a fine outcome too.
Where a tutor actually helps
Not by handing you a test. The city gives you four of them, free, and they are better than anything sold in a bookshop because they are the real interface. What families run out of is the next step: three hours of silence with nobody reaching for a phone, and someone who can look at a summary report and say which four item types to work on and in what order.
Our diagnostic is one of these forms, proctored, in the conditions of the day, followed by an hour going through it with the student and the parent in the room. You leave with the report, the list, and a plan for the weeks that remain — whether or not you book anything after that.
Questions families ask
Are there official SHSAT practice tests, and are they free?
Yes. New York City Public Schools publishes four full-length practice tests for eighth-graders taking the exam in fall 2026, plus a mini form for ninth-graders and two summer forms. They are free, they need no account, and the city states that no name has to be entered to start one. They run in a web browser with no software to install.
Is there an SHSAT practice test PDF?
Yes — each of the four tests has a printable PDF of the whole form, and each has a separate Explanations Appendix giving the reasoning behind every correct answer. Use them when there is no computer available. The city is explicit that a child who only practises on paper should still take at least one digital form, because the exam is taken on a DOE computer and the tools and item types are part of what is being tested.
How many questions are on the SHSAT practice test?
Fifty in each section, one hundred in total, exactly as on the real exam. If you have read “57 questions per section” somewhere, that number describes the older paper SHSAT and it is still repeated across the web and in books printed before this year.
How long does a practice test take?
The timed version runs 180 minutes — the standard administration time for both sections together. The untimed version simulates the six-hour extended-time administration. The timed form cannot be paused and submits itself when the clock ends, so start it only when three straight hours are genuinely available.
What score does my child need?
There is no passing mark. The eight testing schools rank every candidate by composite score and make offers down the list until the seats are gone, so the number that matters is last year’s lowest score that actually received an offer at each school — and it is different at each one. Those figures are published by the city and we keep all eight of them, ninth grade and tenth grade, on one page.
Can I convert a practice test score into a real SHSAT score?
Not honestly, and we will not print a table that pretends otherwise. Each item on the real exam carries a difficulty parameter, and the performance score comes from the pattern of correct and incorrect responses against those difficulties rather than from a count of right answers. The city publishes no raw-to-scaled conversion for this administration. What the practice test gives you is the summary report of which items were right and which were wrong — that is the diagnostic, and it is the useful part.
My child is in ninth grade. Do these apply?
Yes, if they are in ninth grade for the first time and are a New York City resident. The city publishes a grade 9 mini form of items aligned to the standards through grade 8, and says explicitly that ninth-graders should use it in conjunction with the grade 8 practice tests.
Looking for the qualifying score at a particular school? All eight testing schools, with their offers and lowest qualifying scores.
Sources · last checked September 22, 2026
- NYC SHSAT Portal — Practice Tests — the four grade 8 forms, the grade 9 mini form, the summer forms, the printable tests and the Explanations Appendices; timed and untimed lengths; translated directions.
- NYC Public Schools — Specialized High School Admissions Test — 50 questions per section, 180 minutes, adaptive item selection, how the score is built, accommodations, and where the exam is taken.
- NYC Public Schools — Specialized High Schools enrollment page — the fall 2026 dates: applications open October 6, registration closes October 30, weekend administration November 14 and 15, School Day November 18, last weekend date November 21.
- NYC Guide to the SHSAT for 2027 Admissions (PDF) — sample questions with answer explanations, test-day rules, preparation advice.
SHSAT prep in Manhattan
Sit one under real conditions
A full-length timed diagnostic at 928 Broadway, in the adaptive format, followed by an hour reading the report with you. The test dates are November 14, 15, 18 and 21 — the weeks left are countable.