The U.S. Army defines evaluation as “the observation of performance against known standards.” For each collective task, a training and evaluation outline gives “the conditions under which the task should be accomplished” and “the standard to which the task must be accomplished.” Evaluators mark each step a GO if it was done correctly and a NO GO if it was not. Soldiers can read the outlines on the Army Training Network.
Some Army leaders tell soldiers who finish training early: “We train to standard, not time in this unit.” In a 2024 essay, the writer Sean Sweeney criticized leaders who say this and then keep soldiers at the training site after they have met the standard.