NEW YORK, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- American students' math scores took a bigger hit from the pandemic than their peers overseas, according to a major international test.

U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders saw their math scores drop steeply on a big worldwide test between 2019 and 2023, as more than a dozen other countries saw their scores improve, according to results released Wednesday from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS.

The exam is a broad math and science assessment of fourth- and eighth-grade students from the United States and dozens of other countries.

Research has linked school closures to greater learning loss, and the United States had a higher duration of at least partial school closures than many other countries, including all of Europe, according to a UNESCO analysis.

"Still, at least one other big exam of high-schoolers, released last year, suggested U.S. learning loss wasn't worse than its peers," noted The Wall Street Journal in its report.

"The stakes are high. Test scores predict economic success both for countries and individual students," it added. Enditem

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