How we check every Gradecairn workbook

By Gradecairn Publications. Last updated: October 2026.

Four checks stand behind every answer in a Gradecairn workbook. We write every question for the book, a separate computer check proves the shape and number answers, each question is read for wording and fairness, and the finished book is answered cold from the printed pages. Here is what each check does, what it found in our Grade 2 book, and what it cannot promise.

Every question is written for the book

None of our questions is taken from a real test or copied from another book. Each of the 426 questions in the Grade 2 book follows the format of one of the 9 question types at CogAT Level 8, so your child meets every kind of puzzle before test day.

Because no question comes from a real test, a practice test shows your child the formats. It does not predict a score, and we never claim it does.

A separate computer check proves one right answer

Shape and number questions are built from rules. A number series repeats a pattern, and a figure matrix changes by a set step from one box to the next.

A second program then solves each of these questions on its own. It is written apart from the program that makes the questions and does not share its code, so a mistake in one is unlikely to repeat in the other. A question goes in the book only when this check finds exactly one right answer among the choices. The check tests only the patterns it knows, which is one reason the cold read below still follows.

Picture questions, such as picture analogies, depend on what a child knows about the world. Rules cannot prove those, so the next two checks carry them.

Each question is read for wording and fairness

Every question, direction and explanation is read the way a parent would say it aloud. The read asks one thing: could a 7-year-old in a US 2nd grade class fairly know these words and pictures?

We use AI for this read, set up as several kinds of teacher, and we fix what it finds. One change it led to in the Grade 2 book: children now mark their answers on the question pages, and the copyable answer sheet is for a second try. Our books are created with the help of modern digital and AI tools, and carefully reviewed by our team.

The finished book is answered cold

Before release, the whole book is answered from the printed pages by a reader that has not seen the answer key, and every answer is compared with the key. The reader is an AI model, run apart from the one that built the book.

For the Grade 2 book, 425 of 426 answers matched. The one miss was question 3 in the Number Series section, where the reader miscounted beads. The computer check proves only one rod can come next, and 5 of 6 blind readers over two rounds chose the keyed answer, so the question stayed as it is.

The free answer check uses the same key

The free answer check reads its answers from the book files. Nobody types them in by hand, so the website and the printed key cannot drift apart.

Before the check went online, we entered the real key for each of its 3 tests, the two paperback tests and the ebook test. All 156 answers came back right every time.

What these checks cannot promise

They prove the answers, not the test result. No practice book can tell you what your child will score, and our books and our answer check never give a score, a percentile or an IQ.

The checks also cannot make every picture easy to read. If a question looks wrong or unclear to you, tell us at hello@gradecairn.com and we will check it again.

CogAT is published by Riverside Insights, which did not review these checks. See the Grade 2 book, or read how we handle your data.