CogAT this year for 2nd grade

[Anonymous]

07/15/2011 05:30 is also a troll.

[Anonymous]

to 8:48 -- neither NNAT nor CogAT were hard -- this was what I heard after my son and other kids finished the tests for the past semester. only a few questions were tricky (from what I heard) but these were enough to trick the kids out of the cut-off score range. because to make the cut-off, you can only make 1-2 mistakes in one or more subjects. so it is actually not that easy!! so I was impressed when my son's score came back. to be sure, I am not the person who could be impressed easily!

[Anonymous]

POD 13:18. The questions we saw in our study practice book had a couple of answers that could be close to correct, but only by knowing the material could the child pick the right answer. Part of our practice was DC picking the answer, then explaining to me why it was the correct answer. Sometime the kid just guessed right.

[Anonymous]

To Anonymous at 07/15/2011 08:48 -

I remember that question distinctly because my son said "It is the nurse because this is a guy doctor" and followed it up with "That was a trick question!" and made me laugh.
Actually, sometimes it is easy to get the answers wrong and think that the right answer is not there. A good example was one verbal question which both he and I got wrong and my wife reasoned out the right answer. It was classifying like objects. The question had the names of three bugs like beetle, ladybug etc and the answer choice had things like wings, insects etc and we were looking for another bug name. The word 'fly' was in the answer choice, but we kept reading it as the verb 'fly' and not the noun 'fly'. My wife had to later point that out to us. It was a duh moment alright.
I found a few questions like that and it makes it all the more interesting even for my boy. I think the book offers a lot of material with the 4 practice tests and for me it is the best one I have found out there.

[Anonymous]

it is important for the kids to understand the format of the test, esp. CogAT. this 3-parts (in 3 days) test was READ to the kid. and the num. of questions in each section (40+)to me is quite long for these little kids.

[Anonymous]

That was one thing that worried me about this test. Would DC stay focused long enough to answer all of the questions and think through the questions. Practice by reading 40 or so test questions and having the kid answer you, then explain why they picked the answer they picked. You'll know then if they know the material enough to pick the right answer, or if they are just guessing.

[Anonymous]

Here's another question that doesn't make sense:
"Select the picture that shows a circle between a square and on top of a triangle." BETWEEN a SQUARE and WHAT? The grammar of this question makes it impossible to answer correctly b/c one answer has a circle between two squares and on top of a triangle and another answer has a circle between a square and a triangle and the circle is also on top of a triangle.

There are others like that where the writing of the question is very poor or others were the answers are simply not right. One question: select the picture that shows a robin.... except there are no robins in the answer. There is a bird with a pointed crest like a blue jay, so I guess we'll just call that a robin? And for those that have this book -- First practice test Matrices section -- I believe #17 and 18 do not have the correct answer listed -- so please explain it to me if you think they are listed.

I've found a variety of problems with the book == makes me think a non-native English speaker threw this together. You would expect it to be very accurate but it's not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's another question that doesn't make sense:
"Select the picture that shows a circle between a square and on top of a triangle." BETWEEN a SQUARE and WHAT? The grammar of this question makes it impossible to answer correctly b/c one answer has a circle between two squares and on top of a triangle and another answer has a circle between a square and a triangle and the circle is also on top of a triangle.

There are others like that where the writing of the question is very poor or others were the answers are simply not right. One question: select the picture that shows a robin.... except there are no robins in the answer. There is a bird with a pointed crest like a blue jay, so I guess we'll just call that a robin? And for those that have this book -- First practice test Matrices section -- I believe #17 and 18 do not have the correct answer listed -- so please explain it to me if you think they are listed.

I've found a variety of problems with the book == makes me think a non-native English speaker threw this together. You would expect it to be very accurate but it's not.

Which book are you using? We bought the books from the Critical Thinking Company and they seem pretty good. Kind of easy for my kids (who are at different levels and not prepping for thr CogAt since one is already in AAP and the other is too young). I just use them for their summer "homework" to keep them thinking over the summer.

[Anonymous]

This book is the $26 book of practice tests from Amazon called "4 Practice Tests for the CogAt Grade 2." Green cover.