Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAP score, how reliable is it?

I would not make that assumption at all. Neither of my 8th graders consistently increased with every administration of MAP. However, if you step back and look at broad patterns over years, then scores should roughly show an upward trend. Furthermore, MAP scores reflect a single day and not all the skills students actually acquire in school. As an example, DS' math score dropped 8 points from one administration to the next but I wasn't worried since he told me that he accidentally hit enter with a wrong answer marked. In his case, with scores near the upper limit (above 300), missing a question may have re-routed his test to easier questions. I don't remember how high the Primary version of MAP goes but that may be an issue as well.