Practice Test A: 2025 vs. 2026 — Every Change on the Official Digital Test

If your family has been using SHSAT Practice Test A on the NYC portal, you may have noticed something subtle: the digital test feels shorter. You are not imagining it.

Practice Test A 2025 (digital TestNav capture): 57 ELA + 57 Math = 114 questions.

Practice Test A 2026 (portal digital test we reviewed): 50 ELA + 50 Math = 100 questions.

Same 180 minutes. Same TestNav delivery. Same core passage titles on the ELA side. What changed is how many questions hang on each passage, which specific skills were cut — and how strictly the on-screen navigation behaves.

This post is a Practice Test A digital test comparison (2025 vs. 2026). For the big-picture shift from 57 to 50 across all portal tests, see 57 vs. 50 questions explained. For TEI how-tos, see the Practice Test A & B TEI guide.

Practice Test A at a glance: 2025 vs. 2026

Parent takeaway: Your child is not studying a completely new test. They are studying a tighter version of the same Practice Test A digital test — fewer repeats of similar skills on poetry, science journalism, and fiction, plus one fewer grammar standalone.

Digital test navigation rules (TestNav)

These rules apply to Practice Test A on the portal and match what NYC describes for the 2026 digital SHSAT. They are easy to miss if your child only practiced on paper.

You cannot go forward without an answer

TestNav will not let students advance to the next question until they select a choice, complete a drag-and-drop, or enter a grid-in value. There is no “skip for now” button. A blank screen blocks progress.

Prep implication: Train your child to commit to a best guess, not to circle a question and plan to return later (except inside an ELA passage set — see below).

You usually cannot go back

So the old paper-test habit — “skip the hard ones and return at the end” — does not work in Math on the digital test. Inside a reading passage, your child still gets one last chance to fix answers before locking the set.

Full rule set: SHSAT navigation rules changed in 2026.

The six reading passages did not change — counts did

Both years use the same genre balance: three literary + three informational.

The Benefits of Indoor Plants revising/editing passage still has five passage-based questions on both digital tests (intro sentence, transition drag, supporting sentence, delete irrelevant sentence, conclusion).

There is no new replacement passage — for example, the 2026 Word export of *Voice in the Wilderness* is the same public-domain excerpt families already saw on the 2025 digital test, not a swap-in from a different book.

ELA: the seven questions that disappeared

All seven cuts are on the ELA section. Math drops from 57 to 50 as well; the portal still uses multiple choice plus grid-in entries, but we are still transcribing which specific math items changed. For prep purposes, treat Math as same topics, fewer items until you have your child's missed-question log from the 2026 digital test.

1. Snowy Mountains (poetry) — lost one question

Removed (2025 Q5): *How do the details in the third stanza (lines 15–26) most contribute to the development of a theme?*

Still on the 2026 digital test:

So the poem block is slightly leaner, not easier — the hardest TEIs remain.

2. The Best Laid Plans of Ravens — lost two, gained one narrower item

Removed:

Added / reframed on 2026:

Kept: “merely instinctual” phrase effect, first-experiment evidence, paragraph 5 structure, author’s POV method, and “author would most likely agree.”

Study tip: Ravens prep should emphasize paragraph 4 evidence and paragraph 5 structure, not memorizing paragraph 1’s hook function.

3. A Voice in the Wilderness — eight questions became six

Confirmed kept: The tone question on *“when all three had taken the trouble to tell her”* (2025 Q17) — still the opening item on the fiction block.

Removed: Two of the six remaining 2025 slots (Q18–Q24), which covered evidence, simile, plot, imagery, theme, figurative language, and plot pivot. The 2026 digital test keeps six fiction skills total instead of eight — less repetition on figurative-language and plot follow-ups.

If your child drilled only the 2025 question numbers, re-map to passage sets on the portal; numbering restarts within each passage.

4. Champion of the Channel — no cuts

All nine items remain, including the table question on channel swim records. If your child is strong on biography with charts, this block is still a high-value practice target.

5. The Spirit of the Herd — lost one structure question

Removed (2025 Q37): How paragraph 9 fits into the structure of the excerpt.

Kept: Peroxide Jim “emergency work,” early paragraphs’ central idea, setting effect, phrase meaning on “bore down the flank,” Wade/horse central idea, paragraphs 14–16, and mood before the lightning.

6. Lowell — no cuts

All seven history questions remain (quotation purpose, central idea, growth evidence, sentence roles, mill girls, industrial decline). Wording on a few stems was tightened; skills are the same.

7. Revising/Editing — Indoor Plants unchanged; one standalone grammar item cut

Indoor Plants (passage-based): All five items unchanged — including the drag transition onto sentence 5 (*Unfortunately,* etc.).

Standalone grammar:

Students who over-practiced comma-and-semicolon in science paragraphs on Q55 should redirect that time to paired revisions and drag error identification — still on the digital test.

Technology-enhanced items (TEI): same four on ELA

Practice Test A 2026 ELA still has four TEIs, matching the 2025 Practice Test A digital test:

Nothing here moved to “all multiple choice.” TEI practice is still mandatory for 2026. See the full TEI walkthrough.

Math: 57 → 50 on Practice Test A

Both years use TestNav Math directions (no formula sheet, diagrams not necessarily to scale, graphs to scale). The 2026 breadcrumb shows 50 OF 50; 2025 showed 57 items in the same Practice Test A math section.

What we know so far:

What to do until item-by-item math diff is published: Have your child take Practice Test A 2026 Math once timed, log topics missed (ratios, geometry, expressions, etc.), and compare to ELA — do not assume the same question numbers from a 2025 answer key still line up.

What did NOT change (and still matters for prep)

Fall 2026 live test day may be computer-adaptive while portal Practice Test A remains a fixed 50+50 digital practice test. Adaptive routing is a separate concern from this 2025-vs-2026 content comparison — see computer-adaptive SHSAT.

How families should use both years of Practice Test A

Do not tell a child they “got 42/57” on the 2025 digital test and expect that to equal “42/50” on the 2026 digital test. Compare percent correct by topic, or use a platform that tags misses by 30 SHSAT skills.

Quick checklist after reading this