In 1963 the Menzies Government decided to award 10 000 scholarships for study in years 11 and 12 to students who performed best in an examination at year 10. The first version of a set of tests was developed by ACER and administered in 1964. Over the next ten years around 100 000 students sat the tests each year until the program was abolished by the Whitlam Government in 1973. In total a million students took the CSSE tests and 100 000 were awarded the scholarship.

The CCSE tests were not based on a specific course of study, rather each paper attempted to test the abilities developed by good teaching and interested learning, and which should, if well developed, lead to success in later education. The CSSE was an 8 hour battery taken in four two hour sessions over two days. In the morning session of Wednesday the 7th of October 1964 there was a two hour test of specific and integrated writing skills. In the afternoon there was a two hour test of Comprehension and Interpretation (Sciences). The first session on Thursday the 8th was Quantitative Thinking, followed by Comprehension and Interpretation (Humanities) in the afternoon. From the distance of 50 years it can be seen that the CSSE was a crucial step in the history of ACER. It began a style of sophisticated, cross-curricular test development that has been a grounding for much of the assessment work of ACER since the 1970s.