About Cambridge International Examinations

CIE is part of the world-renowned University of Cambridge, and is one of the world’s foremost providers of educational qualifications and assessments. Our qualifications include IGCSE, O Level, A Level, AS Level, and Skills and Career Awards. Every year, millions of students in more than 140 countries take CIE examinations, and the qualifications they obtain are recognized by universities, colleges, schools and employers across the globe.

Lower Secondary (11-14 years) Checkpoint

Checkpoint is an innovative curriculum and diagnostic testing service. It is designed to help students learn and to assess their abilities. The curriculum guides students aged 11 to 14, through a three-year education programme, preparing them for the Checkpoint tests. Tests are available in English, Mathematics and Science. Students will learn which parts of these subjects they are good at and which parts they need to work on.

Checkpoint is ideal for students who will be taking IGCSE or GCE O Level courses and the tests are a good predictor of future examination grades. The diagnostic reports generated by Checkpoint enable teachers to monitor group and individual performance, tailor individual student learning programmes and provide information for reporting to parents. The feedback from Checkpoint test is also designed to help students obtain better IGCSE or GCE O Level grades.

Results from Checkpoint tests are usually delivered within five weeks and detailed information is provided on both the individual student performance and that of their cohort or year group.

What are Checkpoint tests like?

There are two papers in each subject. Each paper is about an hour long (it varies from subject to subject). Within a three-week period, schools can hold the tests at any convenient time; so they don’t need to disrupt other lessons.

Checkpoint tests allow students to experience an external examination. This is a good preparation for their IGCSE or O Level examinations.

The tests have an international flavour. Students from many countries around the world take Checkpoint tests, and the questions are designed to be suitable for students of all cultural and language backgrounds.

The questions are written for students aged about 14 years. We try out all the questions before they are put into the papers, to check that they are suitable and that they give useful feedback.

After the test, the papers are sent to Cambridge and marked by trained and skilled examiners. The marks are carefully analysed and a report is produced on each student’s work. The whole process takes about four weeks.

What information will the report contain?

Each student will get two pieces of paper. One is a statement of Achievement, which gives the overall result. The other is a report, which gives more details about the student’s performance.

Results will be given as Checkpoint scores. Scores are between 0.0 (the weakest performance) and 6.0 (an excellent performance). The average score is between 3.0 and 4.0.

The report won’t just give a score for the subject as a whole. It will also give scores for the main topics in the subject. This will tell the students if they have any important strengths or weaknesses, or if they are about the same in all areas.

The report will also give information about the questions which give evidence of the student’s strengths and weaknesses. These are the questions which the students got right but which most others of the same ability got wrong, or conversely, the questions which the student got wrong, but which most others of the same ability got right.

Can Checkpoint scores be used to predict IGCSE and O Level results?

Research has shown that Checkpoint scores are good predictors of performance in IGCSE and O Level examinations. Students with the same Checkpoint score will achieve a range of IGCSE and O Level grades, because some will work harder and learn more than others. The probable grades are shown in the table below.