Taiwan CAP

Overview

The Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students, known in Chinese as the 國中教育會考 and widely called CAP, is Taiwan's nationwide standardised test at the end of junior high school (grade 9). It is administered once a year by the Ministry of Education's K-12 Education Administration, with the actual test development, marking and scoring carried out by National Taiwan Normal University's Research Center for Psychological and Educational Testing. CAP does not by itself decide whether a student graduates; instead, its results feed into the regional admission process that places ninth-graders into senior high schools, vocational senior high schools, and five-year junior college programmes.

Who can apply

CAP is taken by students in their third and final year of junior high school (grade 9) across Taiwan. Nearly every ninth-grader sits it, because almost all admission routes into senior high school, vocational senior high school, and five-year junior college programmes require a CAP result. Students normally register as a group through their junior high school; students who are not enrolled through a regular school register individually with their regional examination committee. There is no registration fee.

Exam pattern

CAP covers five subject areas plus a separate writing assessment, all sat on the same weekend.

Marking and results

CAP does not report a raw numerical score to candidates. Each of the five subjects (Chinese Language, English, Mathematics, Natural Science, Social Studies) is reported as one of three proficiency bands, and the two higher bands are further split by how far above the pass mark a candidate scored:

The separate Writing Assessment is graded on its own six-point scale (1 to 6, with 6 the highest).

These CAP bands are not used alone to place students into senior high school. For admission through a region's tuition-waived ("exam-free") channel, a candidate's CAP result is converted into points and combined with other factors - commonly called the "comprehensive score" - such as multi-dimensional learning performance (attendance, service, physical fitness, and similar school records) and the candidate's order of school preferences, under a regional "excess-ranking" formula used only when more students apply to a school than it has places for. Some senior-high and vocational programmes instead admit through a separate talent- or specialty-based track, where the CAP result (or a programme-specific test) is used more directly as an entrance score. Exact weightings differ by admission region and are published separately each year.

Important dates

For 2026 (the 115th academic year), the Ministry of Education's K-12 Education Administration announced the CAP exam for 16-17 May 2026 (Saturday-Sunday), with the official registration booklet published on 9 January 2026. Results for the 2026 sitting are expected in early June 2026, after which candidates submit their school preferences for the regional admission rounds. Exact registration windows, result-release dates and admission-round deadlines are set by each regional admission committee and published on the official CAP site and regional 12-year basic education websites; candidates should check their own region's calendar rather than assume dates carry over unchanged from a previous year.

How to apply

Students enrolled in a junior high school are registered for CAP as a group by their school; no individual action or fee is required. Students who are not attending a regular junior high school (for example, home-schooled or overseas students planning to return to Taiwan's system) register individually through their regional examination committee within the registration window set for that year. Registration confirmation documents are distributed through the school, or directly by the regional committee for individual registrants.

After the exam

After CAP results are released, candidates use them, together with their school preferences and (where applicable) their comprehensive score, to take part in their region's senior-high admission process. The main routes are: tuition-waived ("exam-free") admission within a candidate's home admission region, where a CAP-based comprehensive score is used only to rank candidates when a school is oversubscribed; talent- or specialty-based admission, where a CAP result or a programme's own entrance test is used more directly; and admission into five-year junior college programmes. Each of Taiwan's admission regions runs its own registration and placement timetable after national CAP results are published.

Preparation tips

• Work through CAP's released past papers for all five subjects and the writing assessment, available from the official testing-centre site; question style and difficulty are stable from year to year.

• Review the full three-year junior-high syllabus rather than only the final year, since Natural Science and Social Studies each combine several subject strands across all three grades.

• Practise the extended composition under timed conditions and against the official writing rubric, since it is marked separately from the Chinese Language paper and uses its own six-point scale.

• Check the current year's admission-region rules for how CAP results convert into a comprehensive score, since the weighting of the CAP result against learning performance and preference order differs by region.

FAQs