Customer Support Ruling

Objective Test Materials – Media Mail
Updated January 2001

PS-017 (473.2.2)

This Customer Support Ruling discusses the eligibility of objective test materials at the Media Mail rates of postage.

Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 473.2.2*, provides that printed objective test materials and their accessories used by or on behalf of educational institutions to test ability, aptitude, with or without answers, test scores, or identifying information recorded thereon in writing or by mark, may be mailed at the Media Mail rates of postage.

Objective tests are composed of test questions which may each be answered with only one correct or right answer and with respect to the grading of the answers to such questions, no two reasonable people could differ on the results.  The answers to the questions in such tests are usually in the form of true/false or multiple choice and scoring is often done by using a scoring key.

Accessories to objective test materials include articles such as answer sheets, scoring keys, directions how to take the test, pencils and similar devices, which are mechanically or procedurally necessary to take the tests and permit central scoring.  These items are acceptable at the Media Mail rates only when mailed with the actual printed objective test materials to which they relate.

*See also DMM 173.3 and 373.2.

(Signed)
Sherry Suggs
Manager
Mailing Standards
United States Postal Service
Washington DC 20260-3436