Achievement test results, in combination with other data, are used to help guidance counselors plan students' future educational programs to the extent that such data assist school personnel in grouping students for optimal instructional benefits. Implementation of such plans may require fitting the curriculum to the student. Two types of schemata are important to learning as it relates to the use of achievement tests: (1) content schemata, or previously learned background mental structures which form cognitive maps and are active in the generation of expectancies of knowledge that one object or event will follow another; and (2) formal schemata which are those previously learned skills students use to manage learning, remembering, and thinking. This study sought to identify the latent variables measured by a standardized achievement test. Subjects were members of the sixth-grade class in a midwestern school district. Item responses were analyzed from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Form G, Level 12. Results of the study indicated that this sample of students all had similar levels of prerequisite skills in the areas assessed, and therefore there should not be any disparities in their adaptation and cognitive modes for these subject matters during their seventh-grade instruction. There were no indications that modifications to next year's curriculum would be necessary to fit the curriculum to the students. (ABL)