Iowa Assessments

Standardized tests help schools objectively assess students’ academic progress and potential from year to year. A.C.E. School of Tomorrow, through Riverside Publishing, offers one of the finest achievement and aptitude test combinations available.


The Iowa Assessments™ Form E Complete Battery (Iowa Complete) and the Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT®) Form 7 measure how students are performing on nationwide standards. The Iowa Complete is a large-scale achievement test that assesses students’ skills in reading, language, mathematics, social studies, and science. The test measures both foundation skills and higher-order thinking skills. The CogAT evaluates the development of students’ reasoning abilities using verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal cognitive tasks. When the two are taken together, the scores are a valuable tool, relating a student’s actual achievement with his or her ability and providing a wealth of information to parents and school staff. The CogAT Form 7 is administered in Levels 2, 5, and 8.

The Iowa Assessments measures what a student knows and can do efficiently. Therefore, the subtests are timed. The times have been established to give a student sufficient time to answer the questions. All questions are in multiple-choice format. Staying within the timed guidelines will give a more accurate test result.

Fall testing for new enrollments must be conducted at the beginning of the school year for accurate results. Please refer to the Testing Dates page for deadlines and recommended test levels by testing period. Testing a new student at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the year gives school administration insight into the growth achieved during the first year of attendance. Tests are administered two to three mornings, depending on the level being tested.

Iowa Assessments are available in two formats. Click the links below for details.

Iowa Assessments materials are only available to campus-based schools that use the A.C.E. curriculum and have a Ministry Service Agreement. School administrators may download the Planning Guide for paper and online testing. If you are interested in obtaining a Ministry Service Agreement, please contact your Ministry Service Representative. If you don't know your representative, you may contact A.C.E. Education Services at 1-800-470-8991. For those schools with students enrolled in the Dual Enrollment program, testing is not provided by Lighthouse Christian Academy. Dual Enrollment Schools are responsible for providing their own testing.

Administrators of the Iowa Assessments™ and Cognitive Abilities Test® must meet the following three requirements.

First Requirement: Meet one of these three qualifications.

  • Have a four-year college degree (B.S. or B.A.) in any discipline
  • Have a pastoral degree, license, or ordination in the case of a pastor-led Christian school
  • Have current certification as a teacher in any state and experience in administering standardized achievement tests

Second Requirement: Complete the annual online Academic Assessments training. (Be sure to provide the completion code from the training when ordering.)

Third Requirement: Agree to adhere to the following principles of sound, professional, and effective test use.

  1. Maintain the security of testing materials before, during, and after testing
  2. Avoid labeling students based on a single test score
  3. Adhere strictly to applicable law, including copyright and other intellectual property laws, and under no circumstances photocopy or otherwise reproduce answer forms, test books, or manuals
  4. Administer, score, interpret, and use tests exactly as specified in the manual
  5. Release results only to authorized persons and in a form in keeping with accepted principles of test interpretation

To order paper or online testing, email IowaInfo@aceschooloftomorrow.com or call 1-800-925-7777.

Iowa Assessments materials cannot be purchased by individual homeschool families. Students enrolled in Lighthouse Christian Academy, the official distance education program of A.C.E. School of Tomorrow, will be offered these tests at no additional cost.