Our school gives end of the year tests, but I am not sure if they are the tests by the test publisher or something the school came up with. They use those scores in combination with MAP and the state standardized test math scores. I think they want to see 85 percent accuracy on the end of the year grade level tests to skip that grade. I'm not sure what they do if a student does extremely well on something like MAP but then bombs the paper/pencil tests. I don't think the tests have any "explain your answer" type questions, they are multiple choice or do the calculation and write your answer type questions (from what I've heard), although the unit tests seem to have a lot more "explain your answer" type questions.
Keep in mind that the WJ math achievement test takes into consideration fluency/speed which may be a strength or a weakness for certain kids. DD's MAP score was way higher than her composite on the WJ because of this. Her WJ broad math score put her pretty average for her age, but she is accelerated 2 grade levels for math and doing fine. It's the timing aspect that messes her up but she's great with abstract reasoning (probably a lot of it is making educated guesses on multiple choice tests) and therefore does well on MAP and the school pencil/paper pre-tests.
FWIW, DS was tested in first grade with the WJ ach. as part of a comprehensive evaluation for special ed and his broad math was 155. I tried to use it to advocate but no one really seemed to care about his score (even though it was the school itself that gave him the test, they almost treated it like they thought it was a bogus result or irrelevant in terms of using the score to place him appropriately).
