This study contributes to our understanding of the impact of such events on students. The
Minnesota students did not know that they had actually passed the test for several months, and
during this time, they experienced the same consequences as students who actually failed; there
is no reason for them to respond differently than students who had actually failed. And there was
little difference in the mathematics skills of the students who were wrongly informed that they
failed and other students who barely failed; the misinformed students who actually passed had
true scores that were only slightly above the cut-off for passing. They failed the test because of
scoring errors in only one or two questions.