The purpose of this study is to analyze the items of middle school life science summative assessment based on the understanding aspects of Wiggins & McTighe. Through this, the study is to investigate assessment strategies that can reflect students’ various levels of understanding. To this end, a total of 4,303 assessment items from 21 middle schools were analyzed from 2020 to 2023. The analysis results showed that middle school life science assessment items were mainly focused on ‘explanation’ among the aspects of understanding. Furthermore, the assessment items every year focused on measuring ‘explanation,’ and among units of life science in the middle school, the ‘Reproduction and Genetics’unit took up a large portion of the assessment. These results suggest the need to develop assessment tools and scenarios that not only meet the curriculum achievement standards but also provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding using appropriate methods. By increasing the alignment between the curriculum achievement standards, assessment objectives, and appropriate questions, it is expected that a deeper understanding of students and an improvement in the overall learning process can be achieved. Therefore, it is crucial to improve curriculum and assessment me...