Is there a TACHS practice test PDF? What Riverside has
Short answer
Yes—the official TACHS Student Handbook PDF contains 19 sample questions and an answer key on printed pages 30–38. The handbook says no online practice test is available; these samples are not a full-length practice test.
If you are searching for a TACHS practice test PDF, the official sample questions are inside one file: the TACHS Student Handbook. The TACHS is run by Riverside Insights (Riverside Assessments, LLC) for the Archdiocese of New York and the Dioceses of Brooklyn/Queens and Rockville Centre. Its Student Handbook tells families to answer the sample questions at the back of the online Student Handbook, and says plainly that no online practice test is available.
The handbook is online only — there are no printed copies.
What is actually in the official sample set
The sample questions and answer key sit on the handbook’s printed pages 30–38. Nineteen questions in total:
| Section | Sample questions | Item types shown |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | 4 | — |
| Written Expression | 2 | — |
| Mathematics | 5 | — |
| Ability | 8 | Figure Matrices (2), Paper Folding (2), Figure Classification (4) |
| Total | 19 | Answer key on printed page 37, which explains each Ability answer rather than just listing a letter |
Those four areas are the four the TACHS measures — Reading, Written Expression, Mathematics and Ability (reasoning with figures) — delivered in six timed subtests. For the fuller picture of the sections, see What’s on the TACHS?
How to get the most out of 19 questions
- Open the Student Handbook PDF and go to printed page 30.
- Cover or skip page 37 on the first pass, so the answer key stays unspent.
- Do not treat it as a timed test. Nineteen questions is a format preview, not a full sitting.
- Have your child answer every single one. The TACHS does not take off points for wrong answers, so leaving a sample blank practises the wrong habit.
- Read the Ability explanations in the answer key together. The Ability samples cover Figure Matrices, Paper Folding and Figure Classification.
- Then move to the two set-up tools below, which cover the parts a paper PDF cannot.
Two more free official tools
The 2026 TACHS is an online, remote test taken at home on the family’s own computer and monitored by Proctorio AI proctoring, so part of practising is practising the machine.
| Tool | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| System Pre-Check | Checks the computer, webcam and microphone, and gives a short navigational tour of the test platform | proctoring.riversidedatamanager.com/Pre-Check.aspx |
| ClassCalc Basic Calculator | Free stand-in for the on-screen calculator, with video tutorials | classcalc.com/basic-calculator |
The Parent Guide says to run the Pre-Check two to three days before testing, after installing Chrome and the Proctorio extension. The 2026 test dates are Friday, November 6, 2026 for the Archdiocese of New York and Saturday, November 7, 2026 for the Diocese of Brooklyn/Queens and the Diocese of Rockville Centre — so for most families that means the first days of November.
New in 2026, a basic four-function calculator is built into the exam for eligible portions, and personal calculators are not allowed. That is why the Parent Guide points to ClassCalc: it is calculator practice, not a practice test. Details are on Can you use a calculator on the TACHS?
Each subtest also opens with a few sample questions, so students see what is being asked before the section starts.
For the computer, browser and hardware list, see Taking the TACHS at home.
What no official PDF gives you
The one thing the 19 samples cannot simulate is endurance. Standard testing time is about 2 hours 10 minutes, or about 3 hours 15 minutes with extended time, with optional five-minute breaks after the first three subtests and one-minute pauses after subtests 4 and 5. If you want your child to rehearse sitting still and working at a screen for that long, you will have to build that yourself — a quiet morning, no phone, the full stretch of time, using the handbook samples and ordinary grade-level work.
Plain practice on the underlying skills is also fair game. Our worked sets include fraction practice, percent practice and ratio and proportion practice.
About third-party “practice tests”
Riverside and the three dioceses do not encourage or endorse TACHS coaching or tutoring programs, and they warn that programs claiming to have copies of the test are likely invalid. The Handbook also says that doing well on a tutoring program’s practice tests does not mean the TACHS result will match. That is not a reason to avoid outside practice material. It is a reason to read the label carefully: judge a commercial practice set on whether its questions are good, not on what it claims to be.
Before you read any practice-test result, it helps to know how TACHS scores are reported. See What is a good TACHS score? and When do TACHS results come out?