It's an achievement test, but the science section is much more reasoning than anything else.... Math and grammar are pretty much straight what-do-you-know types of questions, Reading is comprehension (nothing fancy, but you know... stuff you can theoretically figure out from the text without having any background in it) and science is graph/chart/data interpretation.

It qualifies as an acheivement test for our homeschool testing purposes, when the SAT does not....

Does that help?

Erica