TACHS: Complete Exam and Timing Guide
TACHS supports ninth-grade admission to participating Catholic high schools in New York, Brooklyn/Queens, and Rockville Center. It combines academic achievement with spatial reasoning. This course provides original skill practice; its results do not predict an official percentile or an admission decision.
Who it is for: Students in eighth grade in 2026–27 applying for ninth grade in fall 2027. Confirm each intended school’s admission requirements.
The complete test and its timing
The official guide gives approximately 130 working minutes for standard testing and 195 with approved time-and-a-half, across six separately timed subtests. Three optional 5-minute breaks and two 1-minute pauses add 17 minutes: about 147 or 212 minutes if all are used, before check-in and directions. These totals are approximate; individual subtest counts and clocks were not established from current public documents or the school pages checked.
Reading
What it tests: Main idea and supporting evidence; Inference and evaluation; Author’s purpose; Vocabulary in context.
Task formats: Four-option questions about literary and informational passages.
Review within the unfinished subtest; submitting it locks return.
Written Expression
What it tests: Organization and coherence; Clear, effective expression; Sentence structure and standard English.
Task formats: Passage revision, including no-change decisions; Identify the line containing an error.
Selected responses; the public format does not require an essay.
Mathematics
What it tests: Number sense and operations; Algebra and patterns; Data, probability and statistics; Geometry and measurement.
Task formats: Four-option computation and reasoning questions; diagrams may be included.
Follow the live instructions for calculator access; discard scratch paper after this subtest.
Ability: spatial and figural reasoning
What it tests: Matrix relationships; Fold and unfold transformations; Shared visual properties.
Task formats: Figure matrices: complete a missing figure; Paper folding: infer unfolded hole positions; Figure classification: join three examples with one matching figure.
Official examples have five choices. Scratch paper is not permitted after Mathematics, including Ability.
Versions and eligibility
Standard November 2026 remote test
TACHS names four reporting domains while the test-day guide describes six timed subtests. The sample booklet illustrates three distinct Ability tasks. No secure current full form was accessed.
Approved extended time
Time-and-a-half is the accommodation described by the current registration and eligibility documents. Approval is required; a school plan does not automatically change the TACHS session.
Authorized makeup after illness or technical failure
Follow the official support and assignment process. An authorized continuation or makeup is not an optional score-improvement retake.
Breaks and navigation
- Each subtest has its own timer. You can skip, mark, and revisit questions while that subtest remains open; confirm every answer you intend to change before selecting Finish.
- Confirming Finish ends access to that subtest. Unused time is not an invitation to reopen it.
- The guide provides optional 5-minute breaks after the first three subtests and 1-minute pauses after the fourth and fifth. Breaks expire automatically and the next test begins, so return promptly.
- The daily bank uses practice timing. It does not reproduce unverified individual official clocks or a full proctored six-subtest administration.
Calculators and permitted tools
- The September 2026 guide introduces an embedded four-function calculator through the test interface. Personal calculators remain prohibited.
- The guide refers to eligible portions without publishing a complete subtest-by-subtest availability table. Follow the live directions rather than assuming the tool is available everywhere.
- Develop number sense and estimate before calculating. A correct button sequence cannot repair an incorrect mathematical model.
How scoring works
- The Home Report supplies national percentile rank (NPR) and local percentile rank (LPR) for Reading, Written Expression, Mathematics, Total Achievement, and Ability.
- NPR compares with a national eighth-grade reference group; LPR uses the participating diocesan testing cohort. Compare the same subject and reference group across any target calculation.
- A percentile is a relative rank, not percent correct. A percentile-point gap does not tell you how many more questions are needed.
- Total Achievement is weighted from the three academic areas. The public materials do not publish the weights or a usable raw-score conversion; averaging displayed percentiles does not reproduce it.
- The report explanation says raw scores and percent-correct results are not released. The official rank-conversion link currently leads to a placeholder, not a conversion table.
- The handbook states that incorrect responses carry no deduction. Use remaining permitted subtest time to make an informed choice.
- There is no universal admission or scholarship threshold supplied by these materials. Schools make their own decisions. Ordinary retesting and rescoring are not available.
What happens on test day
- Complete the official readiness check on the intended device in advance. The current requirements list Windows 11, macOS 11 or later with specified Intel hardware, and supported Chromebooks. Use the current Chrome/Proctorio requirements; do not assume an iPad, every Mac, a virtual machine, or a VPN setup will work.
- Have the TACHS ID and assigned session code ready. Follow the notification and allow at least 30 minutes before the assigned time for login and checks.
- Prepare a quiet room, working webcam and microphone, and reliable connection. Clear unauthorized materials and personal devices from the workspace; only the candidate answers questions.
- Complete the required room scan and screen-sharing steps. The student starts the assessment with the test’s Start control; technical assistance must not become help with content.
- Use current official support instructions for interruptions. The September guide adds live technical chat; keep the parent support information available.
- After Mathematics, remove scratch paper before Ability. A practice interface permitting notes does not change this official restriction.
Registration and retakes
- Register through tachsinfo.com or its official telephone channel, once only. The 2026 window runs August 24 at 9 a.m. to October 28 at 11 p.m. Eastern; confirm the live portal. The published fee is $78 and includes reports to three selected schools.
- New York candidates test November 6; Brooklyn/Queens and Rockville Center candidates test November 7, 2026. Assigned 8:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. sessions are not chosen by preference. Check the session notification due November 4 after 1 p.m.
- School-choice deadlines conflict: the current calendar has November 7 at 11:59 p.m. in one passage and 11 p.m. in another, while one handbook passage says November 8. Confirm the portal and enter choices before the earliest published November 7 11 p.m. cutoff.
- The calendar schedules Home Reports for January 22, 2027 after 3 p.m. One registration passage incorrectly prints 2026; the older score-interpretation PDF describes the prior sitting.
- TACHS registration does not replace school applications. Applicant-record deadlines also vary: the calendar gives December 11, ADNY’s page December 9, and Molloy December 10. Confirm each recipient’s earlier applicable deadline and any separate application or scholarship assessment.
Accommodations
- Register first, then send the eligibility form and supporting documents to the aligned diocese. The current form sets October 2, 2026 as the deadline and says late submissions are not accepted.
- The form describes a current IEP/IESP specifying extended time, an annually completed 504 plan, or a qualifying professional evaluation within three years. Read the exact documentation requirements with the diocese.
- Approval arrives by email. If no verification arrives by October 9, contact the aligned diocese immediately. Keep the approval and verify the assigned session.
How to prepare
- Reading: locate evidence and distinguish what a passage states from an inference. Practice both literary and informational texts, including vocabulary in context.
- Written Expression: read the surrounding paragraph before editing. Preserve meaning, check sentence boundaries and agreement, then evaluate organization and relevance.
- Mathematics: translate the situation into quantities, use units, estimate, and verify diagrams or tables before choosing an operation.
- Ability: separate shape, position, count and shading; test a matrix rule across multiple examples. Reverse folds in reverse order and identify the common property of all classification examples.
- Use diagrams for spatial practice. Learn the method from worked examples, then reason without scratch paper when rehearsing Ability conditions.
- Treat short timed drills as skill practice. Use the official readiness tools for test-day controls and do not infer an official percentile from this bank.
Details to confirm
- Public sample items demonstrate formats, not the current secure form’s counts, clocks, coverage weights or empirical difficulty.
- This guide uses the 30-page September 2026 Parent Guide. Older copies may describe different calculator and test-day tools.
- Individual clocks/counts, a complete calculator-availability map, and proprietary score conversions remain unverified. No full official simulation is claimed.
- Published calendar and school deadlines contain inconsistencies. The assigned session, live portal, diocese and receiving schools must resolve candidate-specific instructions.
- Original questions, proposed difficulty labels and estimated practice times need editorial and learner validation; they are not official TACHS material.
- Official sample labels alternate A–D/J–M and A–E/J–N in the booklet. This practice bundle uses its own consistent interface labels; the live test’s display was not inspected.
Frequently Asked Questions
Checked 2026-10-03. Your test provider’s instructions at registration take priority over this guide.