A norm-referenced test is one whose score gives an estimate of where a person stands on the trait or skill being tested, relative to some representative group. In education, the skills being tested might range over things like reading comprehension, vocabulary, basic arithmetic, algebra, and more. The representative group may also be referred to as the “normative sample” or “norm group”. For an educational test, the normative sample is nothing more than a group of children, aggregated by age, who have taken the test.