What to expect with CogAT?

[Anonymous]

With the return of the CogAT this year, anything that folks familiar with it from past years can share wirh parents of current 2nd and 3rd graders who'll be taking it? I.e. are there any quirks about the testing format that are useful to know about (especially for those of us wirh easily flustered kids)? Is it timed?Are scores available on screen at the end? Do scores get sent home to parents, and if so, how long does that take? Etc.

[Anonymous]

Yes it's timed and it's mostly a test on intuition (especially for non-verbal questions, e.g., paper folding). For verbal questions, a wide vocabulary can help a bit.

Tell your kids to try to do questions fast (opposite strategy to MAP test). If not sure, select the one that looks most correctly to them. I remotely remember that student can go back and revisit a question in each battery, but once a battery is done, they cannot go back.

3rd grade CoGAT doesn't factor into CES selection this year, so there's no-string attached to the results. Whether it would be used 2-3 years later for MS magnet selection, who knows. It's a good test to really find what your kid is good at. My son did great at this test, got accepted to CES and magnet all the way through, advanced in every magnet STEM course, but still struggled in ELA classes at HS because lack of intuition about understanding the embedded information or mood between words. My daughter did bad in paper folding (i.e., lacking spatial reasoning skills), but never find geometry a hard course later on. So my point is, don't over-interpret the score of this test.

[Anonymous]

2nd graders are untimed

[Anonymous]

Really, is MCPS going to administer cogat again for rising 4th graders and 6th graders?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes it's timed and it's mostly a test on intuition (especially for non-verbal questions, e.g., paper folding). For verbal questions, a wide vocabulary can help a bit.

Tell your kids to try to do questions fast (opposite strategy to MAP test). If not sure, select the one that looks most correctly to them. I remotely remember that student can go back and revisit a question in each battery, but once a battery is done, they cannot go back.

3rd grade CoGAT doesn't factor into CES selection this year, so there's no-string attached to the results. Whether it would be used 2-3 years later for MS magnet selection, who knows. It's a good test to really find what your kid is good at. My son did great at this test, got accepted to CES and magnet all the way through, advanced in every magnet STEM course, but still struggled in ELA classes at HS because lack of intuition about understanding the embedded information or mood between words. My daughter did bad in paper folding (i.e., lacking spatial reasoning skills), but never find geometry a hard course later on. So my point is, don't over-interpret the score of this test.

I don’t think MCPS used 3rd grade performance on 5th grade selection before. 3rd grade kid performance may not be very relevant especially for boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really, is MCPS going to administer cogat again for rising 4th graders and 6th graders?

What about high school magnet selection?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really, is MCPS going to administer cogat again for rising 4th graders and 6th graders?

No one knows. Policy changes fast. We'll see what's the new Chief of Talent says next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes it's timed and it's mostly a test on intuition (especially for non-verbal questions, e.g., paper folding). For verbal questions, a wide vocabulary can help a bit.

Tell your kids to try to do questions fast (opposite strategy to MAP test). If not sure, select the one that looks most correctly to them. I remotely remember that student can go back and revisit a question in each battery, but once a battery is done, they cannot go back.

3rd grade CoGAT doesn't factor into CES selection this year, so there's no-string attached to the results. Whether it would be used 2-3 years later for MS magnet selection, who knows. It's a good test to really find what your kid is good at. My son did great at this test, got accepted to CES and magnet all the way through, advanced in every magnet STEM course, but still struggled in ELA classes at HS because lack of intuition about understanding the embedded information or mood between words. My daughter did bad in paper folding (i.e., lacking spatial reasoning skills), but never find geometry a hard course later on. So my point is, don't over-interpret the score of this test.

Has the criteria for CES for next year been released yet? Can you share it?

[Anonymous]

Oh gosh, some of the Cogat question types look really confusing. Are they allowed to ask for help understanding the directions?

[Anonymous]

Why are ya’ll freaking out about this. Kids take the test. Either they do well or they don’t. Life goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are ya’ll freaking out about this. Kids take the test. Either they do well or they don’t. Life goes on.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

I thought they said the 2nd grade test was untimed and the 3rd grade test was timed. Regardless, the test is meaningless as it is not used for CES admissions. Just for GT identification, which carries no weight at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought they said the 2nd grade test was untimed and the 3rd grade test was timed. Regardless, the test is meaningless as it is not used for CES admissions. Just for GT identification, which carries no weight at all.

FOR NOW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought they said the 2nd grade test was untimed and the 3rd grade test was timed. Regardless, the test is meaningless as it is not used for CES admissions. Just for GT identification, which carries no weight at all.

FOR NOW

That’s not changing anytime soon. The office that does SIPPI (GT) identification is different from the one that does magnet/CES selection. They are not in the same page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought they said the 2nd grade test was untimed and the 3rd grade test was timed. Regardless, the test is meaningless as it is not used for CES admissions. Just for GT identification, which carries no weight at all.

FOR NOW

That’s not changing anytime soon. The office that does SIPPI (GT) identification is different from the one that does magnet/CES selection. They are not in the same page.

You don't know this. It won't change tomorrow, probably, but it could change for the next year, or the one after that. Many of us have young kids where there is plenty of time for things to change drastically.