Florida administers the reading portion every year to students in grades 3 through 10. Students must past the FCAT reading portion to advance from grade 3 to grade 4, unless they can get one of six possible exemptions, which include provisions for non-native English speakers and students with disabilities. Students cannot graduate from high school without passing the grade 10 reading FCAT, although Florida will accept SAT or ACT scores that correspond to passing scores on the FCAT.
Students take the writing section of the FCAT in grades 4, 8 and 10. They write a topical essay in response to a prompt. High school seniors need not have passed the writing FCAT to earn a diploma.
As with reading, Florida tests students in math every year from grades 3 through 10. High school seniors must pass the grade 10 math portion to graduate, although Florida will accept SAT or ACT scores that correspond to passing scores on the FCAT.
Florida administers the science portion of the FCAT to students in grades 5, 8 and 11. All three grade levels face multiple-choice questions, and students in grades 8 and 11 also answer gridded-response questions.
Beginning with the 2010-11 school year, Florida began rolling out a revised version of the FCAT testing program, called "FCAT 2.0." The biggest change from the original FCAT is that students will now take their tests on computers. FCAT 2.0 also modifies some question formats and procedures.