The purpose of this study was to compare calibration and linking methods for placing pretest item parameter estimates on the item pool scale in a 1-3 computerized multistage adaptive testing design in terms of item parameter recovery. Two models were used: embedded-section, in which pretest items were administered within a separate module, and embedded-items, in which pretest items were distributed across operational modules. The calibration methods were separate calibration with linking (SC) and fixed calibration (FC) with three parallel approaches under each (FC-1 and SC-1; FC-2 and SC-2; and FC-3 and SC-3). The FC-1 and SC-1 used only operational items in the routing module to link pretest items. The FC-2 and SC-2 also used only operational items in the routing module for linking, but in addition, the operational items in second stage modules were freely estimated. The FC-3 and SC-3 used operational items in all modules to link pretest items. The third calibration approach (i.e., FC-3 and SC-3) yielded the best results. For all three approaches, SC outperformed FC in all study conditions which were module length, sample size and examinee distributions.