Both you and your students have experienced years of taking tests of all kinds. While you have taken tests and courses about assessment in your teacher preparation program, it is important that you now take the time to create your own plans for assessment. Examining the purpose of assessment is the first step in making decisions about the types, frequency and importance of assessment in your classroom. All assessments, whether a national standardized test or a weekly spelling quiz, share common purposes. Assessments make it possible for you to see who really understands the material on the test and who needs extra work to fully comprehend the material. When you share scores on tests with students, they, too, have a clear idea of how they are doing in class and in school. As a teacher, you can obtain a measure of your success by instructing your students, based on their performance on assessments. When students do well on a test based on material you have taught them, you will feel a real sense of accomplishment. Parents can easily understand most assessment scores as indications of achievement. While parents may not understand every grade or score their students receive, there is a level of almost universal understanding about the difference between receiving a 90% and a 35% grade on a test. Most people also understand how to interpret the cut-off score on a pass/fail test. While no single test can provide a definitive assessment of a student's knowledge and skill set, a look at a variety of test and assessment scores accumulated about a particular student can provide meaningful evaluation of overall learning. Taking this information into consideration, consider how you will respond to this self-quiz of important questions on assessment planning for your classroom.