With the assessments to be used across curricula structured by progress variables, the problem of item development is lessened—ideas and contexts for assessment tasks may be adapted to serve multiple curricula that share progress variables. The cumulative nature of the curricula is expressed through (a) the increasing difficulty of assessments and (b) the increasing sophistication needed to gain higher scores using the assessment scoring guides. Having the same underlying structure makes clear to teachers, policy-makers, and parents what is the ultimate purpose of each instructional activity and each assessment, and also makes easier the diagnostic interpretation of student responses to the assessments.