Anonymous wrote:Are there ways to get kids ready for a WISC? Not "prep" but more just to make sure they don't do poorly bc they have never been exposed to such questions? Is it much like the CogAT?
Yes, there are companies that sell prep materials. If you’re curious about your child’s actual IQ, prepping will give you an inflated number. So it won’t be “real.” Most people don’t prep for the WISC, and so your child’s results will be compared to children who were never exposed to those questions.
If your goal, however, is solely to get a high number so that you can reject an appeal, you should be able to find prep materials to preview by running a search.
My goal is to get a score that reflects DC's ability. I know that going into tests completely cold can disadvantage a test taker so that their score is less reflective of ability. That's my concern. I'm not curious about DC's IQ and wouldn't have them take the test if it wasn't something that could be useful for AAP admission.
This is not the case with IQ tests. You’re supposed to go in cold to get a score that accurately reflects ability. Most people do not prep for a WISC.
Isn't the CogAT an IQ test? It's obvious to me that there are some ways that children can err because they are not savvy test takers, which has nothing to do with IQ per se. How is the WISC so different?
CogAT is not an IQ test. It's considered an ability test. It's easy to prep for since there are fewer domains and the test is purely multiple choice with no interactions with anyone or need to justify any answers. The ceiling for the CogAT is pretty low, and at the top end, there's a huge gap in score between the kid who got everything right (perhaps with a lucky guess) and the kid who got one problem wrong (same ability, but not so lucky).
The WISC is one-on-one with a psychologist, where the kids have to explain their answers. It covers many more domains and gives a much more comprehensive view of the kid. There isn't as profound of a ceiling effect at the top, and a lucky guess could not drastically improve the score.
You are wrong, it's an intelligence test, as is the NNAT, it's just different in length, number of subsets/domains, and format. Cognitive ability is just another word for intelligence.
It's possibly true that WISC is not quite as preppable, but I know from direct experience in educational research that at least one subset is amenable to experience.
Yes, it measures intelligence. But it's far too crude of a tool to suggest that any specific CogAT score corresponds to an IQ. The CogAT ceiling effects are pretty profound and will give very distorted scores.
It's much more preppable than the WISC. There are vastly fewer domains in the CogAT. There are many prep materials online and on amazon. There's no one to check whether the kid seems prepped and invalidate the score if that is the case. Lucky guessing can make a huge difference at the top tails.
I mean, it was renamed from an intelligence test to a cog ability test. It's marketing. No one said it was a "good" intelligence test. A less comprehensive shorter test will of course be less valid.
Anyway, can you explain what you mean about lucky guessing with a hypothetical example?
Not sure what your question is, but here goes. Kid A and Kid B get everything else right, but are both stumped on problem 30. Since the test is multiple choice, both make random guesses. Kid A, who gets the problem right, might end up with say a 152 section score. Kid B, who gets it wrong, ends up with say a 140. There really is no difference in ability between the two kids, but by CogAT ceiling scoring, Kid A now has a much higher section score and likely a much higher VQN. Now throw in kid C, who breezes through everything, finds all questions super easy, but makes a couple careless mistakes. Kid C is probably getting a 132-135 on that section, even though he would have the highest IQ if measured.
The difference in score between a perfect score and one wrong is huge. The difference between 1 wrong and 2 wrong is still pretty big. It's not a problem with the test, but rather a problem with the way people are using and interpreting it. The CogAT isn't meant to differentiate between a 135 and a 145. The test ceiling is too low for that.
This is very helpful, thanks. How did you determine this? By test ceiling you mean the max number of qs the kids have the opportunity to answer?
I determined this through the super scientific method of comparing the scores all of my kids. It was surprising to me that one kid answered all of the questions correctly and got a 150 on that section, while the other got 3 wrong out of like 60 questions in the same section and ended up with a 130. Another kid got 4 wrong and still got a 130, but this kid was slightly younger than the other kid with the 130, so they must have been in different norming buckets. The first kid with the 150 in a section had the same scores in the other two sections as the kid with the 130, but the VQN was 10 points higher.
By test ceiling, I mean the ability of the test to differentiate between kids at the highest ends. The hardest problems in the CogAT aren't difficult enough to distinguish between a kid at the 99.9th percentile and one at the 98th percentile. The WISC is designed to have much more ability to differentiate between moderately gifted and highly gifted kids.
PP, were your kids in different ages at the time? Having a young-for-grade kid get the same number of questions right as an old-for-grade kid makes a big difference too, because of age norming.
They were a little over 3 months apart, but I'm guessing that they ended up in 6 month apart norming buckets. Not the real dates, but as an example: Kid 1 has a birthday Dec 28 and ends up in the October1 - Dec 31 bucket. Kid #2 has a birthday April 2 and is in the April 1 - June 30 bucket.
Anonymous wrote:Are there ways to get kids ready for a WISC? Not "prep" but more just to make sure they don't do poorly bc they have never been exposed to such questions? Is it much like the CogAT?
Yes, there are companies that sell prep materials. If you’re curious about your child’s actual IQ, prepping will give you an inflated number. So it won’t be “real.” Most people don’t prep for the WISC, and so your child’s results will be compared to children who were never exposed to those questions.
If your goal, however, is solely to get a high number so that you can reject an appeal, you should be able to find prep materials to preview by running a search.
My goal is to get a score that reflects DC's ability. I know that going into tests completely cold can disadvantage a test taker so that their score is less reflective of ability. That's my concern. I'm not curious about DC's IQ and wouldn't have them take the test if it wasn't something that could be useful for AAP admission.
This is not the case with IQ tests. You’re supposed to go in cold to get a score that accurately reflects ability. Most people do not prep for a WISC.
Isn't the CogAT an IQ test? It's obvious to me that there are some ways that children can err because they are not savvy test takers, which has nothing to do with IQ per se. How is the WISC so different?
CogAT is not an IQ test. It's considered an ability test. It's easy to prep for since there are fewer domains and the test is purely multiple choice with no interactions with anyone or need to justify any answers. The ceiling for the CogAT is pretty low, and at the top end, there's a huge gap in score between the kid who got everything right (perhaps with a lucky guess) and the kid who got one problem wrong (same ability, but not so lucky).
The WISC is one-on-one with a psychologist, where the kids have to explain their answers. It covers many more domains and gives a much more comprehensive view of the kid. There isn't as profound of a ceiling effect at the top, and a lucky guess could not drastically improve the score.
You are wrong, it's an intelligence test, as is the NNAT, it's just different in length, number of subsets/domains, and format. Cognitive ability is just another word for intelligence.
It's possibly true that WISC is not quite as preppable, but I know from direct experience in educational research that at least one subset is amenable to experience.
Yes, it measures intelligence. But it's far too crude of a tool to suggest that any specific CogAT score corresponds to an IQ. The CogAT ceiling effects are pretty profound and will give very distorted scores.
It's much more preppable than the WISC. There are vastly fewer domains in the CogAT. There are many prep materials online and on amazon. There's no one to check whether the kid seems prepped and invalidate the score if that is the case. Lucky guessing can make a huge difference at the top tails.
I mean, it was renamed from an intelligence test to a cog ability test. It's marketing. No one said it was a "good" intelligence test. A less comprehensive shorter test will of course be less valid.
Anyway, can you explain what you mean about lucky guessing with a hypothetical example?
Not sure what your question is, but here goes. Kid A and Kid B get everything else right, but are both stumped on problem 30. Since the test is multiple choice, both make random guesses. Kid A, who gets the problem right, might end up with say a 152 section score. Kid B, who gets it wrong, ends up with say a 140. There really is no difference in ability between the two kids, but by CogAT ceiling scoring, Kid A now has a much higher section score and likely a much higher VQN. Now throw in kid C, who breezes through everything, finds all questions super easy, but makes a couple careless mistakes. Kid C is probably getting a 132-135 on that section, even though he would have the highest IQ if measured.
The difference in score between a perfect score and one wrong is huge. The difference between 1 wrong and 2 wrong is still pretty big. It's not a problem with the test, but rather a problem with the way people are using and interpreting it. The CogAT isn't meant to differentiate between a 135 and a 145. The test ceiling is too low for that.
This is very helpful, thanks. How did you determine this? By test ceiling you mean the max number of qs the kids have the opportunity to answer?
I determined this through the super scientific method of comparing the scores all of my kids. It was surprising to me that one kid answered all of the questions correctly and got a 150 on that section, while the other got 3 wrong out of like 60 questions in the same section and ended up with a 130. Another kid got 4 wrong and still got a 130, but this kid was slightly younger than the other kid with the 130, so they must have been in different norming buckets. The first kid with the 150 in a section had the same scores in the other two sections as the kid with the 130, but the VQN was 10 points higher.
By test ceiling, I mean the ability of the test to differentiate between kids at the highest ends. The hardest problems in the CogAT aren't difficult enough to distinguish between a kid at the 99.9th percentile and one at the 98th percentile. The WISC is designed to have much more ability to differentiate between moderately gifted and highly gifted kids.
That's really interesting, thanks. Were you able to determine if the errors were all in a row or does that not matter? For example, I am familiar with another test where the score is determined based on the highest item the child completed before getting four in a row incorrect. I'm assuming the CogAT doesn't work like that but the WISC might have some subsections that have a similar kind of stopping rule.
Did you have your kids complete the WISC as well and if so, did it seem to differentiate them better in ways that you expected?
The WISC has stopping rules. The CogAT doesn't. If there are 50 questions in a section, then they answer all 50. For the WISC, there are extended norms to differentiate between kids at the 99.9th percentile and kids who are even higher.
I guess what I'm wondering then is could the difference in scores also be due to the fact that one kid might have made errors earlier in the test vs the other making consecutive errors towards the end? I'm not sure how much info is provided because, alas, I still have not received any detailed report. Just the scores in ParentVUE.
Anonymous wrote:Are there ways to get kids ready for a WISC? Not "prep" but more just to make sure they don't do poorly bc they have never been exposed to such questions? Is it much like the CogAT?
Yes, there are companies that sell prep materials. If you’re curious about your child’s actual IQ, prepping will give you an inflated number. So it won’t be “real.” Most people don’t prep for the WISC, and so your child’s results will be compared to children who were never exposed to those questions.
If your goal, however, is solely to get a high number so that you can reject an appeal, you should be able to find prep materials to preview by running a search.
My goal is to get a score that reflects DC's ability. I know that going into tests completely cold can disadvantage a test taker so that their score is less reflective of ability. That's my concern. I'm not curious about DC's IQ and wouldn't have them take the test if it wasn't something that could be useful for AAP admission.
This is not the case with IQ tests. You’re supposed to go in cold to get a score that accurately reflects ability. Most people do not prep for a WISC.
Isn't the CogAT an IQ test? It's obvious to me that there are some ways that children can err because they are not savvy test takers, which has nothing to do with IQ per se. How is the WISC so different?
CogAT is not an IQ test. It's considered an ability test. It's easy to prep for since there are fewer domains and the test is purely multiple choice with no interactions with anyone or need to justify any answers. The ceiling for the CogAT is pretty low, and at the top end, there's a huge gap in score between the kid who got everything right (perhaps with a lucky guess) and the kid who got one problem wrong (same ability, but not so lucky).
The WISC is one-on-one with a psychologist, where the kids have to explain their answers. It covers many more domains and gives a much more comprehensive view of the kid. There isn't as profound of a ceiling effect at the top, and a lucky guess could not drastically improve the score.
You are wrong, it's an intelligence test, as is the NNAT, it's just different in length, number of subsets/domains, and format. Cognitive ability is just another word for intelligence.
It's possibly true that WISC is not quite as preppable, but I know from direct experience in educational research that at least one subset is amenable to experience.
Yes, it measures intelligence. But it's far too crude of a tool to suggest that any specific CogAT score corresponds to an IQ. The CogAT ceiling effects are pretty profound and will give very distorted scores.
It's much more preppable than the WISC. There are vastly fewer domains in the CogAT. There are many prep materials online and on amazon. There's no one to check whether the kid seems prepped and invalidate the score if that is the case. Lucky guessing can make a huge difference at the top tails.
I mean, it was renamed from an intelligence test to a cog ability test. It's marketing. No one said it was a "good" intelligence test. A less comprehensive shorter test will of course be less valid.
Anyway, can you explain what you mean about lucky guessing with a hypothetical example?
Not sure what your question is, but here goes. Kid A and Kid B get everything else right, but are both stumped on problem 30. Since the test is multiple choice, both make random guesses. Kid A, who gets the problem right, might end up with say a 152 section score. Kid B, who gets it wrong, ends up with say a 140. There really is no difference in ability between the two kids, but by CogAT ceiling scoring, Kid A now has a much higher section score and likely a much higher VQN. Now throw in kid C, who breezes through everything, finds all questions super easy, but makes a couple careless mistakes. Kid C is probably getting a 132-135 on that section, even though he would have the highest IQ if measured.
The difference in score between a perfect score and one wrong is huge. The difference between 1 wrong and 2 wrong is still pretty big. It's not a problem with the test, but rather a problem with the way people are using and interpreting it. The CogAT isn't meant to differentiate between a 135 and a 145. The test ceiling is too low for that.
This is very helpful, thanks. How did you determine this? By test ceiling you mean the max number of qs the kids have the opportunity to answer?
I determined this through the super scientific method of comparing the scores all of my kids. It was surprising to me that one kid answered all of the questions correctly and got a 150 on that section, while the other got 3 wrong out of like 60 questions in the same section and ended up with a 130. Another kid got 4 wrong and still got a 130, but this kid was slightly younger than the other kid with the 130, so they must have been in different norming buckets. The first kid with the 150 in a section had the same scores in the other two sections as the kid with the 130, but the VQN was 10 points higher.
By test ceiling, I mean the ability of the test to differentiate between kids at the highest ends. The hardest problems in the CogAT aren't difficult enough to distinguish between a kid at the 99.9th percentile and one at the 98th percentile. The WISC is designed to have much more ability to differentiate between moderately gifted and highly gifted kids.
That's really interesting, thanks. Were you able to determine if the errors were all in a row or does that not matter? For example, I am familiar with another test where the score is determined based on the highest item the child completed before getting four in a row incorrect. I'm assuming the CogAT doesn't work like that but the WISC might have some subsections that have a similar kind of stopping rule.
Did you have your kids complete the WISC as well and if so, did it seem to differentiate them better in ways that you expected?
The WISC has stopping rules. The CogAT doesn't. If there are 50 questions in a section, then they answer all 50. For the WISC, there are extended norms to differentiate between kids at the 99.9th percentile and kids who are even higher.
I guess what I'm wondering then is could the difference in scores also be due to the fact that one kid might have made errors earlier in the test vs the other making consecutive errors towards the end? I'm not sure how much info is provided because, alas, I still have not received any detailed report. Just the scores in ParentVUE.
In the CogAT, all problems in a section are weighted equally. The section score is based on the total number correct. Whether mistakes are earlier or later doesn’t matter.
Went undiagnosed because my child has always been top of the class and still is. The teachers pointed out that my child would fidget a little but nothing concerning and when called upon to answer questions, would have NO issues answering / solving the question. Also the fact that my child was academically strong and well above his peers, the teachers brushed it off as it being based on my child's gender and age.
This is my oldest child and no one in my family has ADHD (diagnosed) and based on the above information (age and academically no issues) was not fully aware of it until my child got a little older where some of the signs of ADHD started to be more prominent.
Similar to those children with speech disabilities. A lot of teachers will say from K - 2, UNLESS there is there is a SERIOUS speech impairment (stuttering) they will attribute most speech impairment to their age.
To answer the previous commentor. No prep was done. I cannot take credit for my child's cognitive skills / academic achievements.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:To all the new parents on here. Before you drive yourself crazy with these scores and comparing your child to everyone else's. I'm just going to give you the answer straight-up.
While test scores are a factor, the most important thing is how your child is viewed by his/her teacher.
You can have fantastic scores but if the teacher thinks poorly of your child, you are NOT getting into level 4. You will be placed in level 2.
I don't want to burst your bubble but that is the sad reality.
The HOPE SCALE rating better have the boxes of Almost Always and Always checked off with maybe one or two Often. ANYTHING outside that range and YOU ARE NOT getting in.
You can appeal but chances are slim to none (real slim shady please stand up).
My child's score was:
CogAT: 143
NNAT: 160
WISC-V: 149 (Adminstered by GMU)
Didn't get in. Why? My child went undiagnosed with ADHD until recently and had difficulties sitting still in class and was not interested in doing some of the class activities. Therefore the teacher gave my child avg ratings on the hope scale.
I will be kind and say that my child's class had 30 kids for one teacher so the teacher was overwhelmed and did not have the capacity to give my child the assistance required.
This isn't to shatter anyone's hope/dreams but I wanted to give you a real insight as a parent that has gone through this rat race and unfortunately it comes down to how well liked your child is by his/her teacher.
Why undiagnosed ADHD until recently? ADHD can be pretty obvious. Were you just in denial?
Anonymous wrote:Went undiagnosed because my child has always been top of the class and still is. The teachers pointed out that my child would fidget a little but nothing concerning and when called upon to answer questions, would have NO issues answering / solving the question. Also the fact that my child was academically strong and well above his peers, the teachers brushed it off as it being based on my child's gender and age.
This is my oldest child and no one in my family has ADHD (diagnosed) and based on the above information (age and academically no issues) was not fully aware of it until my child got a little older where some of the signs of ADHD started to be more prominent.
Similar to those children with speech disabilities. A lot of teachers will say from K - 2, UNLESS there is there is a SERIOUS speech impairment (stuttering) they will attribute most speech impairment to their age.
To answer the previous commentor. No prep was done. I cannot take credit for my child's cognitive skills / academic achievements.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:To all the new parents on here. Before you drive yourself crazy with these scores and comparing your child to everyone else's. I'm just going to give you the answer straight-up.
While test scores are a factor, the most important thing is how your child is viewed by his/her teacher.
You can have fantastic scores but if the teacher thinks poorly of your child, you are NOT getting into level 4. You will be placed in level 2.
I don't want to burst your bubble but that is the sad reality.
The HOPE SCALE rating better have the boxes of Almost Always and Always checked off with maybe one or two Often. ANYTHING outside that range and YOU ARE NOT getting in.
You can appeal but chances are slim to none (real slim shady please stand up).
My child's score was:
CogAT: 143
NNAT: 160
WISC-V: 149 (Adminstered by GMU)
Didn't get in. Why? My child went undiagnosed with ADHD until recently and had difficulties sitting still in class and was not interested in doing some of the class activities. Therefore the teacher gave my child avg ratings on the hope scale.
I will be kind and say that my child's class had 30 kids for one teacher so the teacher was overwhelmed and did not have the capacity to give my child the assistance required.
This isn't to shatter anyone's hope/dreams but I wanted to give you a real insight as a parent that has gone through this rat race and unfortunately it comes down to how well liked your child is by his/her teacher.
Why undiagnosed ADHD until recently? ADHD can be pretty obvious. Were you just in denial?
Wow, seems FCPS has seriously failed your child. Did you appeal? Can you go to private?
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