The Three Reporting Categories

One overall reading number hides what actually went wrong. Two students can both get 20 of 27 right and still have opposite weaknesses: one struggles to find what the passage says, the other struggles with how it says it. Splitting the score into three categories separates those two problems so the result actually means something.

Every form fills these three bands from the same 27 scored questions, mixed in with 9 questions that don't count toward the score. Key Ideas and Details is the largest, usually 12 to 14 questions, and covers main points, supporting details, and cause and effect within a passage. Craft and Structure runs 7 to 9 questions and covers word choice, point of view, and how a passage is organized. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas is the smallest, 5 to 7 questions, and asks you to compare two passages or weigh evidence and reasoning. Because the pools are unequal sizes, a missed question costs more in the smaller categories.

This sits right next to pacing and text complexity because the three categories don't care how fast you worked. A low Craft and Structure score next to a strong Key Ideas score and time left on the clock isn't a speed problem, it's a skill gap in reading structure and tone. That distinction is exactly what the category breakdown is built to catch, and it's worth more than the single composite number for figuring out what to study next.