The Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) is a government exam sat by children aged 11 to 13 of Trinidad and Tobago as part of the admissions process for all public secondary schools. The SEA was introduced in 2001, to replace the older Common Entrance exam.
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The SEA tests students on three areas, Language Arts, Mathematics and Creative Writing.
The Language Arts section of the exam is divided into three sections, testing respectively Grammar Skills, Vocabulary and Creative Writing.
The Mathematics section of the exam is divided into three sections of general mathematics content, with the difficulty and value of the questions increasing with respect to section.
In the Creative Writing section, students must choose to write either a story or a letter, from a small choice subject material. The themes chosen usually reflect some aspect of Caribbean life, such as picking fruit or apologizing to a neighbor for a broken window.
The precursor to the SEA, the Common Entrance exam, was multiple choice and tested a wider range of subjects. English, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science were tested. Apart from a short Creative Writing Section at the end of the English section, the entire exam was multiple choice. Multiple choice was eliminated when the exams changed to the SEA, the idea being that a written exam would be more indicative of a child's education and competency.