provincial assessements 

The BC Provincial Assessments evaluate a student’s ability to apply numeracy and literacy skills in real-world contexts. These skills include analyzing, reasoning, and communicating effectively while interpreting and solving a variety of problems.

Unlike traditional exams, provincial assessments are not tied to specific courses. Students develop literacy and numeracy skills across all subjects and grade levels, so the results appear as separate entries on their transcripts.
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Key Details:
  • Assessments are completed in Grade 10 and Grade 12 and are required for graduation.
  • Students are allotted two hours plus one additional hour (three hours total) to complete the examinations.  
  • Each assessment is completed online and is divided into three parts.
  • To learn more, click the images to the right.

Scoring & Retakes:
Results are reported on a 4-point proficiency scale: Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Extending. Students may retake each assessment up to three times if they wish to improve their score. While literacy assessment results do not affect course grades, they can impact post-secondary opportunities. For example, the University of British Columbia requires students to achieve at least Proficient to maintain or secure admission.
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Scroll towards bottom of the webpage for exemplars.

Ms. dennis' tips for literacy assessments
As a person who assesses the Literacy exams, Ms. Dennis has a lot of insight.   Below are some of her top tips:
  • ​​The critical thinking response is essentially a synthesis essay that requires you to reference at least one text on the assessment. 
  • For the final writing piece, choose a writing approach you feel comfortable with (narrative, expository, persuasive). Be creative in your approach, rather than repeating what you've done in previous sections.
  • Time management is crucial!  The two multi-paragraph responses are worth 44% of the assessment.  So make sure you leave enough time for them! 
  • Refer to the Ministry Website or past English 12 provincial exams for practice. ​ ​​ ​​​​
For more information, see Part I and Part II of Ms. Dennis' Literacy exam guide. ​​​​​

Numeracy assessment 

BC Math (2021) has a very informative video about the Numeracy 10 exam.   Below is advice that it identifies from the comments made by markers:
  • ​​Make sure you are crystal clear on the formulas; do not mix up the formulas for area and volume.
  • Show your work! Your math and numeracy skills should justify your response to a question, not your opinion.
  • Know what extrapolation means (inferring unknown values based on trends from existing data). 
  • Be very careful where your irregular units are on a graph by closely reading how units are counted (by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s etc.).
  • Explain your logic in point form, not in paragraphs.​
  • Do not apply the information from the Commons Response questions to the Constructed Response questions.  Even if the case studies are similar, that information is not relevant as they are separate questions with their own facts.  ​​
​The video references this website, which contains sample problems and videos that walk students through the solutions.  ​​