Beginning in March, the Illinois State Board of Education will begin implementing the Illinois Assessment for Readiness (IAR) test to students across the state. The IAR will be taking the place of the highly-criticized Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test implemented in 2015.

Critics of the PARCC exam cite duration, scoring errors, technical glitches, and delays in releasing scoring results among their criticisms. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, the IAR will be shorter than the PARCC test while still asking the same types of questions.

The test will be administered to third through eighth graders across the state.