International Benchmarks (Grade 8)

To provide more information about the range of achievement students show in the TIMSS eighth-grade science assessment, TIMSS reports percentages of students reaching four increasingly challenging points along the achievement scale, known as International Benchmarks: Low International Benchmark (400 scale score points), Intermediate International Benchmark (475), High International Benchmark (550), and Advanced International Benchmark (625). The TIMSS International Benchmarks build on each other, representing increasingly demanding science knowledge and skills with each higher benchmark. The students who reach a higher benchmark have also surpassed all lower benchmarks. For example, students who reached the Advanced Benchmark also surpassed the High, Intermediate, and Low Benchmarks.

Descriptions for each International Benchmark provide an interpretation of the achievement scale in relation to students’ performance on the assessment items. For TIMSS 2023, the descriptions of science achievement at the International Benchmarks were updated from TIMSS 2019 based on a review and analysis of the items that students with average achievement at or above each of the benchmarks were likely to solve in TIMSS 2023 (see Chapter 14 in the TIMSS 2023 Technical Report).