Recently, Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) completed a study to connect the scale of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) Testing Program used for Minnesota's mathematics and reading assessments with NWEA's RIT (Rasch Unit) scale. Information from the state assessments was used in a study to establish performance-level scores on the RIT scale that would indicate a good chance of success on these tests. To perform the analysis, linked together were the state test and NWEA test results for a sample of 49,160 Minnesota students who completed both exams in the spring of 2013, the term in which the MCA is administered. For the spring season (labeled "current season"), an Equipercentile method was used to estimate the RIT score equivalent to each state performance level. Under this method, the authors determined the percentage of the population within the selected study group that performed at each level on the state test and found the equivalent percentile ranges within the NWEA dataset to estimate the cut scores. For example, if 40% of the study group population in grade 3 mathematics performed below the proficient level on the state test, the authors would find the RIT score that would be equivalent to the 40th percentile for the study population (this would not be the same as the 40th percentile in the NWEA norms). This RIT score would be the estimated point on the NWEA RIT scale that would be equivalent to the minimum score for proficiency on the state test. For the prior (fall) season, cut scores were estimated by identifying the RIT score associated with the same normative percentile ranking as the cut score from the same season. For example, if the cut score for Level 3 in third grade reading was found to fall at the 44th percentile on NWEA's status norms, the RIT score associated with the 44th percentile for third graders in the fall was assigned as the "prior season" cut score associated with that grade and performance level. Documentation about this method can be found on NWEA's website.