Every term ends the same way: a periodical test with answer key and TOS due on the coordinator’s desk, a stack of modules to cover, and very little time to write fifty good questions. Under DepEd Order No. 15, s. 2026, the official name is now the term examination, but the job is the same — and so is the set of three documents you have to hand in.
This guide walks through the whole set from a blank page: deciding what the test covers, working out how many items each competency deserves, writing the items, building an answer key you can trust, and filling in a table of specifications that actually matches the paper. It also covers what happens after the exam, because the test is only finished once its results have told you something.
The 10-second answer: A complete periodical test set has three parts that must agree with each other — the test paper, the answer key, and the table of specifications (TOS). Start from the competencies you actually taught, give each one items in proportion to the days you spent on it, spread those items across cognitive levels, write the items, then fill in the TOS from the finished paper. Under DO 15 this is the term examination, worth 40% of the Examinations component alongside two summative tests at 30% each.
Periodical test or term examination? What changed in the name
Teachers still search for “periodical test” because that is what the exam was called for years, and most school forms still use the old name. The name changed with the three-term calendar, and a few rules changed with it. The table below shows what is different and what is not.
| Area | Before | SY 2026–2027 (DO 15) |
|---|---|---|
| Grading periods | Four quarters | Three terms |
| Name of the big test | Periodical / quarterly test | Term examination |
| What it covers | The quarter’s lessons | The whole term’s lessons |
| Other tests in the period | Varied by school | Two summative tests (ST1 and ST2) |
| Weight inside Examinations | Varied | ST1 30% · ST2 30% · Term exam 40% |
The timing of each test, counted in instructional days, is explained in our three-term assessment calendar. For everything else that moved this school year, see what actually changed in the three-term school year. In this guide, “periodical test” and “term examination” mean the same thing.
What a periodical test with answer key and TOS includes
A periodical test is never just the paper. Coordinators and school heads ask for three documents because each one checks the others: the TOS proves the paper is balanced, the answer key proves the items have one defensible answer, and the paper is what learners actually see. If any one of them is built separately, they drift apart.
The test paper
The paper is the learner-facing document: the school header, general directions, the items grouped into parts by type, and the directions for each part. It should be readable on a cheap photocopy, which means no tiny fonts, no grey shading, and no diagrams that depend on colour.
The answer key
The answer key lists the correct answer for every item, numbered exactly like the paper. For completion and short-answer items it also lists the acceptable variations, and for essays or problem-solving items it includes the scoring guide or rubric. A key that only says “B, C, A, D…” for a fifty-item test with an essay at the end is incomplete.
The table of specifications
The TOS is the blueprint: which competencies the test covers, how many items each one gets, how those items spread across cognitive levels, and where each competency’s items sit in the paper. If you want the reasoning behind each column, our table of specifications guide with a DepEd sample explains it in detail, and the Filipino version is Paano Gumawa ng Table of Specifications.
Step 1: List the competencies you actually taught
Before writing a single item, decide what the test may cover. If you are new to the whole process, our step-by-step guide on how to construct a test explains each stage in more depth.
The single rule DepEd is firm about is that tests are teacher-made and based on what was actually taught. So the first step is not opening the curriculum guide — it is opening your own lesson log. A competency you skipped because of a typhoon week does not belong in the term exam, no matter what the budget of work says.
For each competency, write down three things:
- The competency statement, in the curriculum’s own words.
- The competency code, so the coordinator can trace it.
- The number of instructional days you actually spent on it. Count days taught, not days on the calendar.
Because the term examination covers the whole term, this list usually includes everything from ST1’s and ST2’s blocks plus the lessons after ST2. If a competency was assessed heavily in ST1, it still belongs in the term exam — the term exam is the cumulative one.
Step 2: Decide how many items each competency gets
Items should follow teaching time. A competency you spent six days on deserves more of the test than one you covered in a single day. The standard way to make that fair is a simple proportion, and it is the same calculation every TOS uses.
Number of items = (days spent on the competency ÷ total days) × total number of items
Here is a worked example for a 50-item term exam over 20 instructional days:
| Competency | Days | Exact share | Items (rounded) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 4 | 4 ÷ 20 × 50 = 10.0 | 10 |
| B | 6 | 6 ÷ 20 × 50 = 15.0 | 15 |
| C | 5 | 5 ÷ 20 × 50 = 12.5 | 13 |
| D | 3 | 3 ÷ 20 × 50 = 7.5 | 7 |
| E | 2 | 2 ÷ 20 × 50 = 5.0 | 5 |
| Total | 20 | 50.0 | 50 |
Two of the shares came out as halves. Rounding both up would give 51 items and both down would give 49, so one goes up and one goes down. When you must choose, give the extra item to the competency that matters more for the next term.
How many items the whole exam should have is usually set by your school or division. It matters less than people think for the grade, because the term exam is converted to a percentage before it is weighted — a 40-item and a 60-item exam both count as exactly 40% of Examinations. What the item count does change is how precisely the test can measure each competency.
Step 3: Spread the items across cognitive levels
A term exam made entirely of recall questions tells you who memorised the module, not who can use it. Spreading items across the levels of Bloom’s revised taxonomy — Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating — is what makes the paper a real measure of learning.
There is no single required split for every subject, and some schools prescribe their own. If yours does not, a common starting point leans toward the lower levels without ignoring the higher ones:
| Level | Share | Items out of 50 |
|---|---|---|
| Remembering | 20% | 10 |
| Understanding | 20% | 10 |
| Applying | 20% | 10 |
| Analyzing | 15% | 8 |
| Evaluating | 15% | 7 |
| Creating | 10% | 5 |
Then distribute each competency’s items across those levels in a way that suits the competency. A competency about identifying parts of a cell naturally sits at Remembering and Understanding; one about interpreting a graph belongs at Applying and Analyzing. Our Bloom’s taxonomy question stems cheat sheet is the fastest way to write an item at a specific level.
Step 4: Choose the item types
Item type follows what you want to see. Multiple choice can measure surprisingly high-level thinking when it is written well, but some skills only show up when learners produce an answer themselves. Most term exams use two or three types, grouped into parts.
| Type | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice | Most competencies at most levels; fast, objective checking | Weak distractors that give the answer away |
| True or false | Quick checks of clear-cut facts | A 50% guessing chance; keep it a small part |
| Matching type | Terms and definitions, events and dates, parts and functions | Equal-length lists that allow elimination at the end |
| Completion / short answer | Recall without cues, computation results | Answers that can be worded several ways |
| Essay / problem solving | Explaining, justifying, creating | Inconsistent scoring without a rubric |
Decide the points per item before writing. If an essay is worth 5 points, the TOS should still show it under its competency and level, and the answer key needs the rubric that awards those 5 points.
Step 5: Write the items
This is where most of the time goes, and where most of the quality is won or lost. A few rules prevent the majority of problems coordinators send back.
- One idea per item. If a learner could get it wrong for two different reasons, you cannot tell which one happened.
- Put the problem in the stem. A learner should be able to answer a good multiple-choice stem before seeing the options.
- Make every distractor plausible. Wrong options should be errors a real learner might make, not jokes.
- Avoid “all of the above” and “none of the above” unless you have a strong reason.
- Keep options parallel and similar in length. The longest, most detailed option is too often the right one.
- Use the words you used in class. A test of Science is not a test of vocabulary the learners have never seen.
If you draft items with AI, read every one before it goes near the paper. Our guide to what AI gets wrong when writing test items lists the specific errors to look for and takes about ten minutes per test.
Step 6: Build an answer key you can trust
An answer key is only useful if it is right, and the fastest way to find out is to take the test yourself. Answer every item without looking at your intended key, then compare. Every disagreement is either a mistake in the key or an item with two defensible answers — and both must be fixed before printing.
While you are checking, look at the pattern of correct letters. If eleven of the first fifteen answers are C, learners will notice. Aim for each letter to be the correct answer roughly the same number of times, in no predictable sequence.
For constructed-response items, write the key as a scoring guide: the full-credit answer, what earns partial credit, and the common wrong answers that earn nothing. For performance-style items, our guide on making a rubric for a performance task shows how to write criteria that two different checkers would score the same way.
Step 7: Fill in the TOS from the finished paper
The TOS should describe the paper you actually wrote, not the one you planned. (If you would rather not count and cross-check by hand, a table of specifications generator does this part for you.) Items get moved, cut, and rewritten during writing, so fill the final TOS last — otherwise its item placements will point at the wrong numbers.
A DepEd-style TOS usually carries these columns:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Learning competency | The competency statement |
| Code | The competency code |
| No. of days | Instructional days spent on it |
| No. of items | Items assigned in Step 2 |
| Percentage | Items ÷ total items × 100 |
| Cognitive levels | How many items sit at each level (R, U, Ap, An, E, C) |
| Item placement | The item numbers on the paper, e.g. 1–10 |
Before submitting, check three totals: the items column adds up to the test’s total, the percentages add up to 100, and every item number on the paper appears exactly once in the placement column. A TOS that fails any of these three checks will be returned.
Step 8: Assemble, proofread, and print
Assembly is where a good set of items becomes a usable exam. Group items by type into parts, order each part from easier to harder so learners build momentum, and give every part its own short directions that say how to answer and how many points each item is worth.
- Keep each item and its options on one page. A stem on page 2 with options on page 3 costs learners time and accuracy.
- Use a separate answer sheet for long tests; it makes checking far faster. Our printable answer sheet templates cover 20, 50, and 100-item layouts.
- Prepare a second form if sections take the exam at different times. Parallel tests (Form A and Form B) explains how to keep them truly equivalent.
- Have a colleague take it before printing. Even a quick read by another teacher catches unclear items; a full pilot test catches more.
After the exam: check, record, and analyze
The term exam does its real work after learners hand it in. Its score feeds the grade, and its item-level results tell you which competencies the class has and has not mastered — information the next term needs.
When you record the score, convert it to a percentage before weighting. The Examinations component is (ST1% × 0.30) + (ST2% × 0.30) + (Term exam% × 0.40), with each test turned into its own percentage first. Adding raw scores across the three tests lets the longest test quietly take over the weighting — the assessment calendar guide shows a worked example.
Then look at the results two ways. The mean percentage score (MPS) tells you how the class did overall and per competency, and an item analysis tells you which individual items were too easy, too hard, or did not separate stronger from weaker learners. If you need to check papers faster, see seven methods teachers actually use.
Common mistakes that send a test back
Most returned term exams fail for the same handful of reasons. Checking for these before submitting saves a second round of revisions.
- The TOS was filled in before the paper was finished, so its item placements no longer match.
- Item counts follow the module’s page count instead of the days actually taught.
- Every item sits at Remembering, even where the competency asks learners to apply or explain.
- The answer key has errors because nobody took the test before printing.
- Competencies that were never taught appear on the test, copied from last year’s paper.
- Raw scores are added across tests in the class record instead of converting each to a percentage.
How to make the whole set in Skoolari
Skoolari was built around exactly this workflow, so the three documents come out of one process and agree with each other by design. You still decide what the test covers and you still review every item; what changes is the hours of typing, counting, and cross-checking.
In DepEd mode
Open a subject folder, choose the Assessment tool, and set the Generation Mode to TOS-Based — competency-aligned. Enter each competency with its code, the days you spent on it, and its number of items, then set the spread across the six cognitive levels or press Auto-balance for a starting point. Upload your module or lesson notes — PDF, Word, PowerPoint, or text — and generate. Skoolari produces the test paper, the answer key, and a Table of Specifications with item placements, all in DepEd format and ready to print.
In College mode
For instructors using College mode, the Generate tab builds the assessment from your uploaded materials, and the TOS button builds a Table of Specifications from that paper on the Starter and Pro plans. It reads coverage from the paper’s source tags and places each item under a level of thinking, which you can check and adjust before downloading it as a Word file.
Either way, the AI never sees your learners’ names or records, and nothing is final until you have read it. You can try it on a free account, and the plans page lists what each plan includes.
Frequently asked questions
These are the questions teachers ask most often while preparing a periodical test with answer key and TOS. If yours is not here, the guides linked above go deeper on each part of the process.
Is “periodical test” still the official name?
Under DO 15, s. 2026, the end-of-period test is the term examination, given once per term. Many schools and teachers still say “periodical test,” and the preparation is the same; just make sure the class record treats it as the term examination worth 40% of the Examinations component.
Do summative tests 1 and 2 also need a TOS?
Many schools require a TOS for every summative test, not just the term exam, and it is good practice even where it is not required. The process is identical; ST1 and ST2 simply cover their own blocks of lessons rather than the whole term.
Can every section take the same paper?
Yes, if they all take it at the same time. If sections take the exam on different days, a parallel form reduces the risk of items being passed along, as long as both forms follow the same TOS.
How long should the term exam be?
Your school or division usually sets the number of items and the time allowed. Whatever the number, the exam’s weight in the grade stays the same because it is converted to a percentage first, so choose a length learners can finish comfortably in the time given.
Is it acceptable to use AI to write the test?
AI can draft items quickly, but you remain responsible for every item on the paper. Check each one against what you taught, confirm the answer key yourself, and never paste learners’ personal data into an AI tool — our guide to student data privacy when using AI tools explains why.
DepEd guidance for SY 2026–2027 is still being clarified by memoranda. Check the details in this guide against the current issuances and your school’s own assessment policies.