PACER Test vs Beep Test

The PACER is FitnessGram's version of the 20-meter shuttle run that the rest of the world calls the beep test. You run between two lines 20 meters apart and reach the far line before each beep. The beeps get closer together every level, and you stop when you can't keep up.

Three things differ. The PACER's first level gives you 9 seconds a lap, which is 8.0 km/h. The beep test table this site runs gives 8.47 seconds, or 8.5 km/h. The PACER recording carries 21 levels where our table stops at 20. And a PACER score is a single lap count, while a beep test score is written as a level and shuttle, like 8.4.

What matches is the part most people care about. The Cooper Institute's score sheet puts the same number of laps in each level as the beep test table, from 7 laps in level 1 up to 16 in level 20. So a lap count converts straight into a level and shuttle.

Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run. It's the aerobic test in FitnessGram, the fitness assessment US schools run in PE, usually once or twice a year alongside push-ups and a flexibility test. The Cooper Institute calls it an adaptation of the shuttle run Léger and Lambert published in 1982 and revised in 1988, which is the test most other countries know as the beep test.

If you're outside the US, you have probably met the same run under a different name: bleep test in the UK, beep test in Australia, or multi-stage fitness test in a research paper. Our PACER test guide covers the PACER itself in more depth, including the recording and why it became a meme.

PACER: the teacher counts laps. Your score is the total number of 20-meter laps you finished before missing the beep for the second time. The official score sheet prints the first 15 levels, which end at 157 laps. FitnessGram then compares that lap count to a Healthy Fitness Zone minimum for your age and sex. There is no grade, just whether you reached the zone. PACER test scores by age has the full table.

Beep test: the score is the last level and shuttle you completed, written with a dot. 5.4 means level 5, shuttle 4. The number after the dot is a shuttle count, not a decimal, so 7.10 is further than 7.9. The beep test levels chart shows how many shuttles each level holds.

Converting between them means counting through the level table. 35 PACER laps is level 5, shuttle 3 on the beep test. The lap converter on the PACER guide does it both ways. What does not convert is the clock. Level 1 of the PACER takes 63 seconds against 59.3 on the beep test, so at the same lap count the PACER runner has been going about 3.7 seconds longer.

FitnessGram also publishes a 15-meter PACER for gyms that can't fit a 20-meter course. The laps are shorter, so you run more of them and the Healthy Fitness Zone minimums are higher. A 15-meter lap count is not a 20-meter lap count, and it does not drop into the beep test table. Schools convert it to a 20-meter equivalent with a look-up chart first.

The beep test has a 15-meter version too, used by UK police for the Job Related Fitness Test. It has its own level table and is not the same thing as the 15-meter PACER. The 15m beep test page explains the police version, and the PACER scores page has the 15-meter school thresholds.

The PACER is a school test. You'll meet it in US gym class as part of FitnessGram, and the result goes home on a fitness report.

The beep test covers everything else. Schools in the UK and Australia use it, and so do recruiters. UK fire services, the Australian Defence Force and UK police forces (on the 15-meter course) all publish beep test pass marks, and sports teams use it for fitness checks. If an employer tells you to hit a score like 8.8, it's a beep test level and shuttle, not a PACER lap count.

Practice for the test you'll actually sit, but for a PACER that makes little difference. The course is the same length and the laps per level match, so the free beep test on our home page is a fair rehearsal. It shows a running lap count on the 20m course, and the results screen gives your total laps, which is the number a PE teacher writes down.

Two things to allow for. The first minute will feel a touch quicker than the PACER, because our level 1 is 8.5 km/h instead of 8.0. And if you are practicing on a 15-meter gym floor, use the 15-meter PACER thresholds, not the 20-meter ones.

For a police, military or fire service test, practice on the beep test itself, on the course length the employer specifies, and aim at their published level and shuttle.