Prepping/Scamming the Cogat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping for the NNAT and CoGAT takes all of what a few hours at the very most? Heck, it would take less time than that just to begin to figure out home schooling and why would we want to do that anyway since we like the FCPS AAP program and think that it is great opportunity for our kids. For all I know my prepped kid might even be sitting next to yours. They might even be friends.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping for the NNAT and CoGAT takes all of what a few hours at the very most? Heck, it would take less time than that just to begin to figure out home schooling and why would we want to do that anyway since we like the FCPS AAP program and think that it is great opportunity for our kids. For all I know my prepped kid might even be sitting next to yours. They might even be friends.

Yup a few hours at the most for AAP deserved kids.
I had my DC run through a sample test - took a couple of hours.

[Anonymous]

But it's not really about your particular kids. It is entirely possible that your particular kids would have scored over a certain percentage on the CogAT with or without prepping them with sample tests.

Here are two reasons why people are concerned about the practice of "Prepping/Scamming the Cogat:"

1. The CogAT results are not reliable when students have spent hours going over sample test questions and answers.

2. Businesses take advantage of the fact that parents want a good education for their children and try to convince them that:

a) A Fairfax County education is second rate unless it's AAP. And,

b) Practicing sample CogAT test for hours in advance of the test is the way to ensure that their children "make it into" AAP.

Here is what the AAP office had to say last week about recent changes to the test in Fairfax County:

FCPS staff members chose to administer the custom form of the CogAT this year after it came to our attention that some students, in previous years, had prepared for the CogAT using the exact form of the CogAT being administered in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

I know how you must feel all alone in the wilderness.

[Anonymous]

I will point out (so much for reading a eating popcorn) that, unlike a lot of the less developed world, performing poorly on one test when 7 does not lead one to a life of flipping burgers.

America is the country of second chances. There are open admission community colleges; transfer to a major state university; grad school at a top school in the country.

I am an internationally known scientist. My IQ is somewhere around 150-160 most of the scientists that I work with refer to me as the smartest person in the field). (I graduated in the bottom half of my FCPS class. Did not do well on the english SAT's. I was rejected by Va Tech, James Madison, and ODU. I went to NOVA for 2 years, transferred to Tech, graduated, when to a top graduate school, received my PhD, and here I am now, 50 years old, world renowned. I basically blew off my life before 18 and did fine.

Wow. Impressive! Matt Daman did the same thing and he was working as a lowly janitor at MIT when he solved that algebraic field equition on the blackboard in that empty classroom. Had a hot pre-med girlfriend too. He ddin't toot-his-own-horn very much though. I hear that he is actually pretty modest (at least compared to some people...).

[Anonymous]

I think you missed the point. It was not bragging, rather stating that AAP/TJ is not a requirement for successful life.

I think it is time for this thread to die.

[Anonymous]

You only have control over your death and not the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you missed the point. It was not bragging, rather stating that AAP/TJ is not a requirement for successful life.

I think it is time for this thread to die.

How much money do you have in the bank? How many women have you slept with? Now those are the measures of a successful life Mr. Professor. Bright perhaps, but definitely not street smart.

[Anonymous]

I will take number of research papers and major awards over number of women I slept with or $$$ in the bank. That is why I do not cheat on the cogat and you do.

[Anonymous]

You are sounding like a beached whale in menopause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will take number of research papers and major awards over number of women I slept with or $$$ in the bank. That is why I do not cheat on the cogat and you do.

I'm not sure your story is relevant to this thread. Your background of wasting the first 18 years (loosely, your words) makes you an exception NOT the rule to success in life. There are always exceptions: those that rise through the ranks when they were bounced from foster home to foster home, immigrant non-educated parents of a valedectorian child, etc. But for the most part those exceptions are quite rare. Typically if a child wastes the first 18 years in life and goes to NOVA, they often don't get too, too far. (They end up dropping out, taking years and years to finish college, incur huge higher education debts, struggle financially and educationally, etc.

[Anonymous]

“Good Will Hunting” what a great film. Boston.Southie culture vs the pampered Washington D.C. elites.

Southie culture - I’ll stick with you no matter what and hey that girl over there looks pretty hot.

Washington DC elites - I am an internationally recognized scientist with numerous research papers and major awards, and excuse me but would please take your AAP prepped kids and home school them? I don’t mean to criticize but they are just so unseemly.

[Anonymous]

For the record, I (the sceintist) never suggested homeschooling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will take number of research papers and major awards over number of women I slept with or $$$ in the bank. That is why I do not cheat on the cogat and you do.

God, I hope my DC never thinks this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. I worked hard after that. But I know many people that "blossomed" after adolescence. And I know a lot of people that burned out after HS. I will bet that the people that prep for the cogat will result many (not all) kids burning out, and losing interest.

I say let 7 yo's be yo's. AAP and TJ will not define success. Quality of life matters.

This. Much sense here but some people will just never get it. They cannot conceive of "success" that doesn't follow a lockstep pattern from one point to the next. It's the only way that makes sense to them and imagining anything outside that pattern is just. too. difficult.