Exhibit 2.1 presents the percentage of students reaching each PIRLS 2016 International Benchmark. The results are presented in descending order according to the percentage of students reading the Advanced International Benchmark. The percentage of students reaching the Advanced Benchmark is indicated in the bar graph with a black dot. Because students who reached the Advanced Benchmark also reached the other benchmarks, the percentages illustrated in the exhibit and shown in the columns to the right are cumulative. More than one-fourth of the fourth grade students reached the Advanced International Benchmark in Singapore (29%) and the Russian Federation (26%).
As a point of reference, Exhibit 2.1 provides the median percentage of students reaching each benchmark at the bottom of the four right-hand columns. By definition, half the countries will have a percentage in that column above the median and half will be below the median. The median percentages of students reaching the International Benchmarks were as follows: Advanced—10 percent, High—47 percent, Intermediate—82 percent, and Low—96 percent. About half the PIRLS countries (24) had more than 96 percent of their students reaching the Low Benchmark, and in five countries, essentially all the students (99%) reached this benchmark—the Russian Federation, Hong Kong SAR, Norway, Latvia, and the Netherlands.
