The HSPT, or High School Placement Test, is one of the two most commonly administered Catholic high school entrance exams. It is a five-part, 298 question test. Students are given 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete the exam. It is broken into 5 sections: Verbal; Quantitative; Reading; Mathematics; and Language Skills. There are also 3 optional sections that schools can include on the test: Mechanical Aptitude; Science; or Catholic Religion. Many schools do not require any of these optional sections.

The HSPT is known for having a lot of questions to do in a short amount of time. The test contains nearly 300 questions, with only 150 minutes to complete. That’s an average of 30 seconds per question! In general, about half of the test time will be spent on math questions (Mathematics and Quantitative sections) and half will be spent on non-math question (Verbal, Reading, and Language Skills).

Questions are all multiple-choice, each with either 3 or 4 answer choices. All of the questions are worth one point, with no penalty for incorrect answers. Students’ raw scores are converted to a scoring scale, which ranges from 200 to 800. These scores are then used by the individual schools for admissions, academic placement, and assigning scholarships.

The HSPT is very challenging, so you’ll need to study hard in order to succeed: you can’t just be content thinking of yourself as a math person or a language person. You have to study to be as well-rounded as you can be. One good way to improve your skills is to use Varsity Tutors free HSPT practice tests to study in advance. Varsity Tutors offers questions modeled after those found on the HSPT’s sections; think of each HSPT Practice Test as being like a little quiz that you can use to hone your skills. After you finish each HSPT Practice Test, you will get to see statistics about how long you took to answer each individual problem, as well as detailed explanations of each problem’s answer.

Varsity Tutors’ Learning Tools also include free Full-Length HSPT Practice Tests for each section. The tests make it easy for you to assess where you should begin your review, as the results can help you create an individualized study plan. The setup of these longer exams gives you the opportunity to work on your test-taking pace and focus on the skills that need review. Just as on the concept-specific Practice Tests, each of the results pages for the complete tests include detailed explanations of the correct answers and illuminating information on primary concepts. However, the comprehensive Practice Tests provide the additional benefit of helping you customize your study plan by revealing which concepts you have down pat, and which concepts you’ll want to continue reviewing. Once you’ve spent some time going over the concepts using the other online Learning Tools, you can check your progress by working through another of the online Full-Length HSPT Practice Tests.

By making use of Varsity Tutors’ free HSPT Practice Tests in each of the test’s sections, you can create a comprehensive study plan that will help you feel as prepared as possible for the real HSPT!