Standards based tests use holistic grading to establish scoring of a paper. It can also be used to assess classroom-based work. Rather than counting errors, a paper is judged holistically if it has too many or too few errors to merit a 1, 2 or 3, compared to an anchor paper

Anchor paper

In standards based assessment, authentic assessment and Holistic grading, a test response is assigned a numeric score against typically both a scoring rubric, or set of rules, and an example paper or two for each level. These examples are called anchor papers. A limitation of the use of anchor...

, or if it meets a writing standard.

Projects using holistic grading

• National Certificate of Educational Achievement
  National Certificate of Educational Achievement
  The National Certificate of Educational Achievement is, since 2004, the official secondary school qualification in New Zealand.It has three levels, corresponding to the levels within the National Qualifications Framework, and these are generally studied in each of the three final years of...
  
   New Zealand graduation certificate is based on controversial holistic grading.
• Graduate Record Examination
  Graduate Record Examination
  The Graduate Record Examinations is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States, in other English-speaking countries and for English-taught graduate and business programs world-wide...
  
   uses holistic grading.
• North Carolina Writing project uses holistic grading.
• Washington Assessment of Student Learning
  Washington Assessment of Student Learning
  The Washington Assessment of Student Learning was a standardized educational assessment system given as the primary assessment in the state of Washington from spring 1997 to summer 2009. The WASL was also used as a high school graduation examination beginning in the spring of 2006 and ending in 2009...
  
  uses holistic grading

External links

• What Is Holistic Grading?