In the Content Explorer, you can find information about the content assessed by the following types of assessments:

Summative assessments, administered at the end of the year, are designed for accountability purposes and used to determine students’ progress toward college and career readiness. Summative assessments are computer-adaptive and include performance tasks and a broad array of accessibility features allow students to better demonstrate what they know and can do.
Interim comprehensive assessments (ICAs) measure similar content to the summative assessments and may be helpful for determining the knowledge and skills of students after a significant period of instruction or of students new to the district or the state. ICAs are fully accessible, fixed-form tests consisting of 30-40 questions and also include performance tasks.
Interim assessment blocks (IABs) are assessments teachers can use throughout the school year to assess smaller blocks of content. Educators can use IABs to check, formatively, where students are at that moment in time and use results to determine next steps for instruction. Since the IABs are more granular than the ICAs, educators can use IABs during the school year more consistently with the sequence of their curricula. IABs are fully accessible, fixed-form tests of 10-18 items per test. Each IAB is associated with a Connections Playlist (available in Tools for Teachers) that supports teachers in determining instructional next steps to help students based on their performance on the assessment.
Focused IABs assess no more than three assessment targets to provide educators with a more detailed understanding of student learning. Focused IABs are fully accessible, fixed-form tests of 10-15 items per test. Each Focused IAB is associated with a Connections Playlist that supports teachers in determining instructional next steps to help students based on their performance on the assessment.