My kid bombed HGC test

[Anonymous]

I don't think any child is nominated by the school..other than an informal teacher suggestion..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, was your child nominated by school to apply for HGC or was it parental involvement/response due to the communication /announcements from MCPS central office?

I didn't know that "nomination by school to apply for HGC" was a thing.

[Anonymous]

I don't think anyone is nominated by the school for HGC..except an informal teacher conversation.

[Anonymous]

The HGC test is very time pressured. If your child wasn't motivated to work very quickly then he could miss a lot of questions just by not answering them. My second child was very motivated because her sibling had gone to an HGC so she wanted to finish and do well. She was able to finish each section but many of her very bright friends were unable to finish. It could be that your child didn't answer a lot of the questions.

[Anonymous]

OP,

How do you know he answered only half of the question correctly?
If memory serves, the scores are given and compared to the median of accepted students.

Here's our story: my son scored above the median of accepted students on both the HGC and magnet middle school tests... and was rejected for both, not even waitlisted. This is because he does not stand out in class and has an IEP (teachers always think that special ed = dumb).

Whatever the circumstances, knowing that your kid deserves better instruction that he cannot access is VERY frustrating!

Keep enriching at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, was your child nominated by school to apply for HGC or was it parental involvement/response due to the communication /announcements from MCPS central office?

I was unaware that schools nominate kids? But we applied to HGC in response to the categorization after InView test as being a good candidate (or however they worded it) for HGC. (Yes, I understand that MCPS categorizes many, many kids as "gifted" after the InView, so I wasn't expecting just based on this that DC should go to HGC. Just that DC should take the test and see how it goes.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is very time pressured. If your child wasn't motivated to work very quickly then he could miss a lot of questions just by not answering them. My second child was very motivated because her sibling had gone to an HGC so she wanted to finish and do well. She was able to finish each section but many of her very bright friends were unable to finish. It could be that your child didn't answer a lot of the questions.

A lot of kids have gone through the 504 or IEP process and have accommodation for extra time on the tests even in third grade It's surprising that families are already aware of these issues given so little testing has taken place at that point but it's quite common. OP, if you do discover any testing difficulty with your DC you may need to pursue the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is very time pressured. If your child wasn't motivated to work very quickly then he could miss a lot of questions just by not answering them. My second child was very motivated because her sibling had gone to an HGC so she wanted to finish and do well. She was able to finish each section but many of her very bright friends were unable to finish. It could be that your child didn't answer a lot of the questions.

OP here. Yes, this is likely the case. I haven't asked DC many questions about the test (either before, or after receiving the results) because I've been trying to downplay its importance so as to not cause DC any concern (DC doesn't even know I have the results, and hasn't asked). I do recall DC mentioning that DC did not come close to finishing the last section. I was surprised to see DC do so poorly on ALL sections, though. But now that I'm thinking about it, I do recall DC feeling anxious about weekly "minute math" tests in prior years. It didn't seem to affect performance though, so it didn't seem unusual to me. But maybe as DC matures, the timed-test nerves are starting to increase.

Anyway, just wondering how unusual these seemingly low scores are, as that might help me understand and better meet DCs needs.

[Anonymous]

The HGC test is the only MCPS given on paper. It could be that your child is bad at transferring answers from a test booklet onto an answer sheet. That's much different from just clicking an answer on the chrome book, which is what they are used to. My child has significant problems with transferring answers due to ADHD, so did not great on the HGC test, although she's always at the 99 percentile for tests given on computer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is the only MCPS given on paper. It could be that your child is bad at transferring answers from a test booklet onto an answer sheet. That's much different from just clicking an answer on the chrome book, which is what they are used to. My child has significant problems with transferring answers due to ADHD, so did not great on the HGC test, although she's always at the 99 percentile for tests given on computer.

but couldn't it also be that a child does well on one type of test but not another, and I don't mean paper vs. computer, but rather, aptitude vs. learned knowledge? MAP tests learned knowledge where as HGC type tests are more like IQ tests that test aptitude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP,

How do you know he answered only half of the question correctly?
If memory serves, the scores are given and compared to the median of accepted students.

Here's our story: my son scored above the median of accepted students on both the HGC and magnet middle school tests... and was rejected for both, not even waitlisted. This is because he does not stand out in class and has an IEP (teachers always think that special ed = dumb).

Whatever the circumstances, knowing that your kid deserves better instruction that he cannot access is VERY frustrating!

Keep enriching at home.

Ugh, sorry PP, how frustrating! Maybe it's new this year, but in the test results they not only tell you your child's score, but they also tell you how many out of the total number of questions that your child got correct, for each section of the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is the only MCPS given on paper. It could be that your child is bad at transferring answers from a test booklet onto an answer sheet. That's much different from just clicking an answer on the chrome book, which is what they are used to. My child has significant problems with transferring answers due to ADHD, so did not great on the HGC test, although she's always at the 99 percentile for tests given on computer.

Now that you mention it, this is a really good point. I do recall DC commenting in a negative way about the paper aspect of the test, seeming to find it challenging. At the time, I didn't pay DC's complaint much attention because I didn't realize that this is the only mcps test that is given on paper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is the only MCPS given on paper. It could be that your child is bad at transferring answers from a test booklet onto an answer sheet. That's much different from just clicking an answer on the chrome book, which is what they are used to. My child has significant problems with transferring answers due to ADHD, so did not great on the HGC test, although she's always at the 99 percentile for tests given on computer.

but couldn't it also be that a child does well on one type of test but not another, and I don't mean paper vs. computer, but rather, aptitude vs. learned knowledge? MAP tests learned knowledge where as HGC type tests are more like IQ tests that test aptitude.

This is also a good point. What does InView test, learned knowledge or aptitude? DC overall did well on InView.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The HGC test is very time pressured. If your child wasn't motivated to work very quickly then he could miss a lot of questions just by not answering them. My second child was very motivated because her sibling had gone to an HGC so she wanted to finish and do well. She was able to finish each section but many of her very bright friends were unable to finish. It could be that your child didn't answer a lot of the questions.

A lot of kids have gone through the 504 or IEP process and have accommodation for extra time on the tests even in third grade It's surprising that families are already aware of these issues given so little testing has taken place at that point but it's quite common. OP, if you do discover any testing difficulty with your DC you may need to pursue the same.

Thanks, will definitely look into it if this continues to be a problem. Or I guess right now, I'm trying to determine if these scores would even indicate a "problem"?

[Anonymous]

Inview is also given on paper as well as all the magnet tests at this point.