CogAt or Fairfax Test?

[Anonymous]

So, last night at my second grader's Back to School night, the teacher said they would be administering the CogAt to the class in October. No mention of the newfangled Fairfax Abilities Test mentioned on other threads. What gives?

[Anonymous]

The Fairfax Abilities Test will be given to 2nd graders. See the Office of Student Testing's website.

http://www.fcps.edu/pla/ost/

[Anonymous]

Why didn't you ask the teacher?

[Anonymous]

it's probably the same test. the teachers are the last to know anything.

[Anonymous]

My DC's teacher said the same. Habit, I guess. They are taking the FxAT.

[Anonymous]

Mercer Publishing has released a new practice test for the FxAT at www.mercerpublishing.com/fxat.html

[Anonymous]

Did the county not expect this from Mercer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mercer Publishing has released a new practice test for the FxAT at www.mercerpublishing.com/fxat.html

Do we have a mole in the system? How would this company even know what is on the test?
Or are they just marketing their cogat materials under the new name to get business?

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the Office of Testing knows, or cares. If all the speculation about the test being adjusted due to concerns about test prep - then, well, you'd think it all would have been more protected. I am suspect of Mercer. How the heck do they know what adjustments have been made?!

[Anonymous]

Mercer's guess is better than mine! I'm buying it. Worst case it is likely like the Cogat test prep.

[Anonymous]

I am wondering if the FxAT is basically a Cogat, but with a different scoring system. Perhaps they have re-centered the scoring to determine percentiles based on this area only.

[Anonymous]

PP, I suspect the same or perhaps that they removed the easier questions or added a few harder ones.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone seen last year's practice test and this year's practice test to compare?

[Anonymous]

Here's the deal: too many parents had a copy of the CogAT test. They were prepping their kids. Kids were coming in with answers memorized or looking at items and saying, "Oh yeah, I've done that one..."

Fairfax went to the publisher and said that they were done with them--too many copies were out there. So the publisher developed another version of the test that only Fairfax has. No copies are out there anywhere except within FCPS. Security is extremely tight. The test will look the same in format.


Mercer is just publishing its own practice test and selling it. They are NOT the test publisher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal: too many parents had a copy of the CogAT test. They were prepping their kids. Kids were coming in with answers memorized or looking at items and saying, "Oh yeah, I've done that one..."

Fairfax went to the publisher and said that they were done with them--too many copies were out there. So the publisher developed another version of the test that only Fairfax has. No copies are out there anywhere except within FCPS. Security is extremely tight. The test will look the same in format.


Mercer is just publishing its own practice test and selling it. They are NOT the test publisher.

Yeah right. Nice story.