Question for parents of kids who prep

[Anonymous]

My kid significantly improved quantitative scores on CoGat by doing Beast Academy consistently.

[Anonymous]

One thing that seldom gets discussed is the testing conditions. My kid told me that the day of Cogat last year, the teacher ran out of tests. So she left the classroom to print more. The kids in the class had some strange privacy barrier on the desks. while the teacher was gone my daughter she was distracted by all the whispering. I only found this out this year, when I requested a retake and asked about how it went last year. Even this year, online, she had to use time to ask for scrap paper.

I am skeptical how good the test conditions are for kids like mine who get distracted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what’s the point of the test prep industry? Someone here (jokingly?) said they prepped their kid from 105 to 155…how?

test prep is for kids who have innate ability but are bad at taking tests. That is the part you can prep. If the innate ability isn't there, not a lot you can do, other than wait. Sometimes the brain just develops. but I'm guessing you are on a time constraint?

It's also for compliant bright kids who can bump from 120 to 150. On paper, it's hard to distinguish between kid A who got 150 composite and kid b who only got 136 composite. Both are 99th percentile. But did one of them prep? Or both? Or neither?

You can’t prep your way across several standard deviations. 5-10 max. Unless, as another suggested, you actually study new material. But if you don’t get it…you don’t get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing that seldom gets discussed is the testing conditions. My kid told me that the day of Cogat last year, the teacher ran out of tests. So she left the classroom to print more. The kids in the class had some strange privacy barrier on the desks. while the teacher was gone my daughter she was distracted by all the whispering. I only found this out this year, when I requested a retake and asked about how it went last year. Even this year, online, she had to use time to ask for scrap paper.

I am skeptical how good the test conditions are for kids like mine who get distracted.

The test is not timed for 2nd grade. Not sure the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 2nd grade. The kid is pretty smart, not genius level or anything, but he gets by. He’s incredibly creative, though, so I thought he would be a good fit for AAP. So, like all the parents in my neighborhood, I bought a couple of books over the summer and had him practice for 20 minutes a day until the test. I got the results—105 NV, 119 Q, 135 V. My kid has never been good at math or special reasoning, but I figured with enough prep he would figure it out. Well, he didn’t. He told me he could study 24 hours a day and still won’t be able to flip an image in his head. How do parents prep their kids to overcome an inmate lack of aptitude in math or spatial reasoning?

I don’t think you can. I went over problems a couple of weeks before the test with my child and from the beginning DC knew how to intuitively answer the questions, some I didn’t even know how to answer myself and had to check the answer in the back of the book. DC scored 143 VQN, nonverbal was 147. I feel like you know or don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing that seldom gets discussed is the testing conditions. My kid told me that the day of Cogat last year, the teacher ran out of tests. So she left the classroom to print more. The kids in the class had some strange privacy barrier on the desks. while the teacher was gone my daughter she was distracted by all the whispering. I only found this out this year, when I requested a retake and asked about how it went last year. Even this year, online, she had to use time to ask for scrap paper.

I am skeptical how good the test conditions are for kids like mine who get distracted.

The test is not timed for 2nd grade. Not sure the rest.

also, the tests were all computerized last year, so this doesn't add up.

[Anonymous]

Your child will struggle in AAP if they aren't good in math. Why not encourage his creativity through other means?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child will struggle in AAP if they aren't good in math. Why not encourage his creativity through other means?

No they wont - may unqualified students came in through the 'side door'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child will struggle in AAP if they aren't good in math. Why not encourage his creativity through other means?

No they wont - may unqualified students came in through the 'side door'.

And unfortunately many kids struggle in AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child will struggle in AAP if they aren't good in math. Why not encourage his creativity through other means?

To be fair, any child with a 115 or higher CogAT Q score is supposed to be considered for advanced math placement. OP's kid is above that threshold, so he should be fine in AAP math.

[Anonymous]

Any test can absolutely be prepped. But to be really effective you’d have to plan for long term over years to introduce and solidify concepts. The brain, especially at that age is really maleable and plastic. Of course the child needs to have some ability on his own, but a 50 percentile average student can easily get to the 90th percentile with appropriate instruction and practice in less than 2 years. It won’t happen in a month if this is what you understand by prepping.

To the posters that think it’s impossible, just look up how intelligence tests are developed, what kind of subject matter is tested, it can be learned.

I do however question how useful it is to put that much effort into it though. I think your child would be better off learning actual math, reading, doing sports or just developing hobbies and interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any test can absolutely be prepped. But to be really effective you’d have to plan for long term over years to introduce and solidify concepts. The brain, especially at that age is really maleable and plastic. Of course the child needs to have some ability on his own, but a 50 percentile average student can easily get to the 90th percentile with appropriate instruction and practice in less than 2 years. It won’t happen in a month if this is what you understand by prepping.

To the posters that think it’s impossible, just look up how intelligence tests are developed, what kind of subject matter is tested, it can be learned.

I do however question how useful it is to put that much effort into it though. I think your child would be better off learning actual math, reading, doing sports or just developing hobbies and interests.

At that point, doesn’t it qualify as enrichment? Spending years molding an average child into a bright one, I mean. Or are you talking about signing up 3 and 4 year olds for CoGat boot camps? I think most “prep” looks more like what OP described—workbooks for a few weeks/months at months. Years of prepping seems like an extreme outlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any test can absolutely be prepped. But to be really effective you’d have to plan for long term over years to introduce and solidify concepts. The brain, especially at that age is really maleable and plastic. Of course the child needs to have some ability on his own, but a 50 percentile average student can easily get to the 90th percentile with appropriate instruction and practice in less than 2 years. It won’t happen in a month if this is what you understand by prepping.

To the posters that think it’s impossible, just look up how intelligence tests are developed, what kind of subject matter is tested, it can be learned.

I do however question how useful it is to put that much effort into it though. I think your child would be better off learning actual math, reading, doing sports or just developing hobbies and interests.

At that point, doesn’t it qualify as enrichment? Spending years molding an average child into a bright one, I mean. Or are you talking about signing up 3 and 4 year olds for CoGat boot camps? I think most “prep” looks more like what OP described—workbooks for a few weeks/months at months. Years of prepping seems like an extreme outlier.

I doubt that there are many parents doing years of CogAT prep but there are formal NNAT and CogAT prep classes. They are easy enough to find with a google search. Who knows how big they are or how many that exist but they do exist. I have read people on this people post that a 10 point bump can be expected from serious prep but I have never actually found that in the info that I have looked at.

Beast Academy, mathnasium, Kumon and the like are enrichment classes that will probably improve a kids performance on the NNAT or CogAT but in specific areas and not the entire test.

DS scored 136 on the NNAT without prep. We did have him walk through a practice CogAT test before the CogAT and he scored a 136. We didn't see a real bump but maybe his score was higher then it would have been if we had not shown him the test in advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any test can absolutely be prepped. But to be really effective you’d have to plan for long term over years to introduce and solidify concepts. The brain, especially at that age is really maleable and plastic. Of course the child needs to have some ability on his own, but a 50 percentile average student can easily get to the 90th percentile with appropriate instruction and practice in less than 2 years. It won’t happen in a month if this is what you understand by prepping.

To the posters that think it’s impossible, just look up how intelligence tests are developed, what kind of subject matter is tested, it can be learned.

I do however question how useful it is to put that much effort into it though. I think your child would be better off learning actual math, reading, doing sports or just developing hobbies and interests.

At that point, doesn’t it qualify as enrichment? Spending years molding an average child into a bright one, I mean. Or are you talking about signing up 3 and 4 year olds for CoGat boot camps? I think most “prep” looks more like what OP described—workbooks for a few weeks/months at months. Years of prepping seems like an extreme outlier.

i know many who did years of Kumon and Mathnasium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did similar prep as OP for COGAT after being shocked by conflicting 118 NNAT and 136 WISC (both unprepped).

I really don't think prep gets you much more than 5 or 10 pts. DC got 136 COGAT, literally the exact same score as a completely unprepped WISC. His nonverbal COGAT section though, was 94th percentile after prepping, had been 88th or so unprepped on both NNAT and WISC sections for spatial puzzles etc.

"Shocked?" What was shocking?