In this article, the author discusses how she uses formative assessments of information literacy skills in the high school IMC. As a result of informal observation and conversations with individual students--a form of formative assessment itself--the author learned that students were not using indexes to locate relevant information in nonfiction print resources. In an effort to have a much better understanding of the students' abilities, the author developed a formative assessment tool to measure their skills. She designed a worksheet that asked students to locate certain information using the indexes of various print resources related to the project. The results of this brief formative assessment were astonishing. Few students were able to complete the worksheet independently and score well. Most students worked independently or only consulted each other--and did poorly. The bottom line is that the author realized that she has a building full of students who were reluctant to ask for help or use the nonfiction collection. (Contains 1 figure.)