This year’s Grade 10 literacy test is old school — pen-and-paper — after a pilot project to move it online ended in digital disaster.

But in a new-age twist, stressed students who need more time to finish it will get it — even if they don’t have previously arranged approvals in place allowing them additional minutes.

The relaxed time rule will also apply to Grade 9 students writing the provincial math test.

Think you are smarter than a 10th Grade student? Scroll down to the bottom and take our quiz

“Although schools will have identified students who regularly require additional time prior to the assessment, there may occasionally be students who request extra time to complete a booklet on the day of the assessment, due to individual circumstances,” said Steven Reid, chief assessment officer for the EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office), in a memo to boards.

“Additional time may be allowed with supervision, so long as the booklet is completed in one continuous sitting.”

Boards across the province have said their understanding is that extra time is allowed for any student who needs it.

Students write the literacy test — which they must pass in order to graduate — on Tuesday.

The literacy test comprises two booklets, and under past rules students were allotted 75 minutes for each one, with a break in between. Those formally identified as needing extra time were given it.

The EQAO said the change in time constraints is not to coddle students; Reid told the Star it is to help students be the best they can.

The EQAO has no plans to track how many students receive additional time, but said the results of the test will remain comparable to those in past years.

Charles Pascal, an education professor at the University of Toronto and former chair of the board of EQAO, said “aptitude should be defined in terms of how long it takes two different learners to achieve the desired result rather than whether some can or cannot perform.

“When it comes to measuring educational results, including literacy via the (literacy test), I have no problem with holding success constant and allowing time to vary.”

Reid said the EQAO will let teachers’ professional judgment prevail, and is expecting them to treat the literacy test as they would any test in their classroom.

The 75-minute allotment already builds in a buffer for students, he said, and in the past most teens have completed it without issue.

Tests are administered in reading, writing and math in Grades 3 and 6, math in Grade 9 and literacy in Grade 10. They were first introduced in 1997.

The time change for high school students was already in place for elementary testing.

York University Education Professor Heather Lotherington, who questions the value of the test — saying it is “out of step” with contemporary literacy evaluations — said nonetheless additional time is “more humane” for students.

The last literacy test, which was piloted online, was shut down after a massive cyber attack impacted 150,000 teens. The saboteurs have never been found.

Originally, the EQAO planned to run a make-up test online last spring, but played it safe and resorted to the traditional paper version, as it will again this year.

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The government is currently reviewing EQAO testing, as it looks to modernize the model and make the exams more inclusive and culturally relevant.

Teacher unions continue to push for random sampling as opposed to the current widespread testing.

Correction, April 10, 2018: An earlier version of the quiz incorrectly stated that a pass is 5 out of 10. A pass on the literacy test is 75 per cent.