Institutions can purchase the exam through the Assessment Resource Center’s Online Store. At this time, students cannot order the exam directly. 

In the Online Store, there are several versions of the exam available for purchase. Select the exam that includes the subjects students at your institution will be taking. Enter the number of exams needed (there is no minimum) and provide the assessment coordinator’s email. Within one business day of submitting the order, the Assessment Resource Center will email the assessment coordinator with a “Group Test Code” and a link to the exam where students will take the exam.

No, only institutions can purchase the exam from the Assessment Resource Center.

Within one business day of submitting your order for the exam, the Assessment Resource Center will email the assessment coordinator with a “Group Test Code” and a link where students will take the exam. You will provide the assessment coordinator’s email during the order process. 

The Group Test Code is the unique code for your testing group. The assessment coordinator will be responsible for providing the test code and link to the exam to students at your institution. Students in your testing group will then enter the code when starting the exam. 

The test code is good for the number of exams you purchased in the ordering process. For example, if you ordered 10 exams, then 10 students will use the same Group Test Code. You can continue to use that same Group Test Code until all 10 registrations are used. Using the same example, if only 9 students take the exam, you could still use the unused registration at a later time. Group Test Codes do not expire.

The assessment coordinator will be responsible for providing the test code and link to the exam to students at your institution. The assessment coordinator will receive this information in an email within one business day of ordering the exam from the Assessment Resource Center. After students receive the information, they can go to the site, register, and begin the exam. 

Students can use their own device to take the exam or a device provided by the institution. It is still necessary for students to come to a central, monitored location to ensure the student signed up for the exam is the one taking it. Students can come to the testing location one at a time or as a group; institutions have the flexibility to handle test administration as it works best for their situation.

It will take one business day for the Assessment Resource Center to release the Group Test Code to your institution, so we recommend ordering at least two business days in advance of students taking the exam.

Students will receive their scores immediately for the multiple-choice sections of the exam (English, Math, Science and Social Studies). They will see their score in a dialogue box after finishing the exam and will also receive an email with the results. For exams that include an essay, scoring for the essay component will be completed within two weeks and students will receive another email with those results. 

After the entire testing group is complete, the institution will receive a report that shows each student’s scores as well as institutional averages for the testing group. The institutional report will be sent within two weeks of the testing group completing the exam. If the essay component is used, the institution will receive the report within two weeks of the testing group receiving their scores on the essay component.

College BASE Online scores will be reported in their raw format (no weighting), so scoring will be different from the current paper version of CBASE. In terms of cut scores, each institution will make their own determination.

The exam should work with any browser, though we recommend using Chrome or Firefox.

Yes, students will continue to use the same study guide. The questions included in the online format are pulled from the original paper test. The online exam includes all of the same domains, subdomains and enabling skills, so the study guide is still appropriate for the online exam.

Each section has a time limit, and each section will automatically end and move to the next if the time limit is reached:

  • English – 30 minutes
  • Math – 30 minutes
  • Science – 30 minutes
  • Social Studies – 30 minutes
  • Essay – 40 minutes

Yes. The test can be formatted to adjust or remove time limits for students with disabilities. When purchasing from the Online Store, select the appropriate test option with Extended Time. Please call us at 800-366-8232 or email arc@missouri.edu to discuss specific accommodations.

Yes, this is a great feature of the online exam. It is completely flexible and modular, and institutions can build their own test to fit their specific assessment needs. The full exam still includes English, Math, Science, and Social Studies sections plus an essay. Institutions can purchase any subject individually or any combination of subjects on the College BASE Online Store page.

The overall alpha coefficient of College BASE Online is 0.916, offering strong support for the internal consistency and reliability of the exam. The combined English and Mathematics sections revealed a Cronbach’s α of 0.828. The combined science and social studies revealed a Cronbach’s α of 0.881.

The revision of College BASE to a condensed online format was carried out using IRT item analysis, DIF analysis, and the analysis of qualitative data from content expert interviews. This procedure resulted in the removal of more than 100 items from the original College BASE paper exam. Yet, while the online version has far fewer items than the original College BASE, all domains, subdomains, and enabling skills are still being measured with precision.

The high discrimination parameters, wide range of difficulty, and reasonable guessing parameters demonstrate that the revised subtests are able to clearly differentiate between respondents by asking items of varying difficulty that require more than simple guessing. The excellent goodness-of-fit statistics provide further evidence that each subtest is measuring what it is intended to measure. Further, the test information functions demonstrate that each subtest will provide accurate measurement for most individuals who will complete the revised CBASE. Overall, administrators, educators, and test-takers can feel confident that general academic knowledge is being assessed with statistical accuracy.