Prepping for aptitude/iq tests

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Here we go again.

Do you want your brain surgeon to be THAT person who attended cram after-school programs and studied day and night?

Or do you want your brain surgeon to be THAT brilliant individual who grasped concepts easily and did not need to cram and study and struggle to grasp what they needed to learn?

I know who I would want. I have no respect for these types of questions.

You can go ahead and take the brain surgeon who didn’t study.

Either you know very well that that is not what the above post is saying… or you have trouble understanding what you read.

It’s saying what it’s saying: it’s comparing a person who studies with a person who is smart and didn’t need to study.

No, he’s comparing a person who has to study to an extreme extent just for a bare minimum of understanding to a person who can study and grasp concepts easily so that they have time to do other things in addition to studying. The second person, who understands easily, has a better grasp of the information than the first person who needs to study for hours and hours, and even then, has a baseline level of understanding- enough to pass a test, but not as deeply and fully as the person who is more intelligent to begin with.

I’m sorry if you don’t understand the difference.

Maybe that’s what that poster is hoping to convey, and relying on other people’s assumptions, but definitely is missing the mark on that one.

Maybe that’s pp should have studied harder and prepped more in order to learn how to correctly express him/herself.

I easily understood what was being conveyed in the first post above here. I thought it was written well and clearly.

You can choose the doctor you want for your brain surgery. If you want the doctor who has to study for hours to pass tests rather than the brilliant physician who can study and learn material quickly and easily and so has a deep well of knowledge of how the brain and how it works, have at it. Go for the less intelligent doctor who had to study all the time to get through school. It’ll be fine…

You sound too invested to make this brilliant point. You must be the initial poster.

No, I’m not actually. I do think it’s interesting that there are people who think that studying a lot can make an average person the same as a gifted person.

I think it's interesting that these white people (and it's almost entirely white people that think this way) think that the typical gifted person doesn't have to work hard to achieve their potential.

Huh. What does “white” have to do with anything?

And who said anything about the gifted person not working hard? The post said that studying a lot doesn’t make someone brilliant, not that brilliant people don’t study. The truth is that two people can study the same amount of time, but the brilliant person is going to have a better understanding more quickly.

I’d rather have that brilliant brain surgeon because that surgeon will be able to figure out what to do if there is an unexpected situation. The one who needed to study all the time just to pass tests will be at a loss if things don’t go by the book.

Because it's mostly white people (American white people) that treat effort like it's cheating.
Generations of privilege have led them to believe that their low effort success is due to innate talent, when it's due to their white privilege.
They use terms like "tryhards" and "strivers" to demean effort because they think that success achieved through effort is somehow less authentic or deserved, when it's actually the opposite.

You are demeaning effort by comparing a "brilliant" person that didn't struggle to become a brain surgeon to a "tryhard" that had to try hard to become a brain surgeon.
Every brain surgeon had to be brilliant AND try hard. Nobody coasts through medical school and a surgery residency. It is physically, mentally and emotionally grueling, almost cruel.

In a competitive environment, EVERYBODY tries hard. It is the price of admission. The notion that there is some brain surgeon out there that didn't have to bust their ass to get through med school and residency is a joke.
And when everyone tries hard the rest is determined by things like brilliance.

No one is saying that the brilliant surgeon didn’t work hard and study. What is being said is that the brilliant surgeon didn’t *need* to spend all their time studying to learn. They learn and grasp new concepts much more quickly and easily than the average person. Plus, because that doctor is brilliant, they will have the capacity to understand and deal with problems in creative ways that a less brilliant doctor who needed to spend all waking hours studying just to pass tests would be able to do. The one who needed to study all the time is going to have a tougher time in the middle of a surgery when things don’t go by the book.

Sometimes in these discussions, a poster will set up a hypothetical of one student of average intelligence who studies all the time and one brilliant student who never studies. And sure, in that situation, yep, the average kid who studies all the time is going to do better than the brilliant kid who doesn’t study. But that’s not real life. In real life, the brilliant kid is also studying, just not all. the. time. The brilliant kid is engaged in a variety of other activities which give that kid a perspective that the kid who only studies will never have. That brilliant kid is always going to do better than the kids who needs to spend every waking minute studying.

No matter how intelligent a person is, they’re always going to do better in life when they balance academics with a variety of other engaging activities. Being able to draw on a diversity of interests and experiences from childhood will serve a person much better in adult life than having spent all their time on only one pursuit.

What is with all of the discussion on doctors and post-grad work? If your child is that brilliant and will aspire to that level, you don't need to prep. Good for you. Noone is trying to compete with their brilliance...

What we're talking about is the grey area between the lower levels of AAP and the higher levels of Gen-ed. These children are practically indistinguishable, and both would do well in the watered-down education system of AAP, while be ignored in the even more watered-down Gen Ed. FFX County created a scenario where a 3-5 point COGAT score could mean the difference between the two groups. As we've seen in this thread, many parents will do what they can to help their child, (and themselves to make life easier at home). We all realize that by "prepping" our DC is not as smart as the 1 percentile child. However, I'm happy your child is there as a peer/model to mine, instead of my child being the same to others in Gen-ed.

[Anonymous]

Why are we talking about brain surgeons in the context of AAP? I want the brain surgeon who graduated at the top of their class at a top medical school. I couldn't care less about what score they earned on an easily gamed aptitude test given at age 7.

People aren't prepping because they think it makes the kid smarter. They're doing it because they think their kid would benefit from AAP, and they want to improve the kid's chances of being admitted. It's that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are we talking about brain surgeons in the context of AAP? I want the brain surgeon who graduated at the top of their class at a top medical school. I couldn't care less about what score they earned on an easily gamed aptitude test given at age 7.

People aren't prepping because they think it makes the kid smarter. They're doing it because they think their kid would benefit from AAP, and they want to improve the kid's chances of being admitted. It's that simple.

YES! Completely agree with the last two posts! Please stop talking about brain surgeons.

[Anonymous]

In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

Uh no. I don't know the history of why FCPS watered down the AAP program. However, I don't think it's because some parents prepped their kids to get a couple points higher on the COGAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

Yes and no. The old GT program was a true gifted program. For whatever reason (bad optics? Parental pressure?), FCPS decided to expand the program from around 5% of the kids to around 20%. This happened before test prep was a real issue. When you lower the rigor and include around 20% of the kids, of course even more parents will pull out all of the stops to get their kids into the program. Pretty much every parent who is an educated professional with a reasonably bright seeming kid will think that their kid is in the top 20%. Also, when 20% of the kids are removed from the gen ed classroom, it makes parents feel like their bright kid who is left behind will have no peer group and receive no academic attention from the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

Yes and no. The old GT program was a true gifted program. For whatever reason (bad optics? Parental pressure?), FCPS decided to expand the program from around 5% of the kids to around 20%. This happened before test prep was a real issue. When you lower the rigor and include around 20% of the kids, of course even more parents will pull out all of the stops to get their kids into the program. Pretty much every parent who is an educated professional with a reasonably bright seeming kid will think that their kid is in the top 20%. Also, when 20% of the kids are removed from the gen ed classroom, it makes parents feel like their bright kid who is left behind will have no peer group and receive no academic attention from the teacher.

This... completely accurate.

Most parents will agree their child isnt "gifted", top 2%, etc... Most parents will not agree their child isn't in the top 20%, or couldn't be with the right resources (of which there's plenty).

FFX county created a system of haves and have-nots, and now we have parents fighting amongst ourselves in anonymous forums on the righteousness of inclusion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

Yes and no. The old GT program was a true gifted program. For whatever reason (bad optics? Parental pressure?), FCPS decided to expand the program from around 5% of the kids to around 20%. This happened before test prep was a real issue. When you lower the rigor and include around 20% of the kids, of course even more parents will pull out all of the stops to get their kids into the program. Pretty much every parent who is an educated professional with a reasonably bright seeming kid will think that their kid is in the top 20%. Also, when 20% of the kids are removed from the gen ed classroom, it makes parents feel like their bright kid who is left behind will have no peer group and receive no academic attention from the teacher.

Where are you getting top 20%? Do you have a spreadsheet of COGAT and/or WISC scores for the kids enrolled in AAP? At our center, there are plenty of kids in high 90s not getting in. Obviously scores aren’t the only factor, but the easiest source of comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In summary, AAP had the potential to be a true gifted program, but parents figured out how to game the system by prepping IQ/ability testing (bc they believe their child to be on the cusp of brilliance, but not quite there), and now it is no longer anything close to resembling a true gifted program, so even more parents prep to get their kids in bc all bright kids need it.

Yes and no. The old GT program was a true gifted program. For whatever reason (bad optics? Parental pressure?), FCPS decided to expand the program from around 5% of the kids to around 20%. This happened before test prep was a real issue. When you lower the rigor and include around 20% of the kids, of course even more parents will pull out all of the stops to get their kids into the program. Pretty much every parent who is an educated professional with a reasonably bright seeming kid will think that their kid is in the top 20%. Also, when 20% of the kids are removed from the gen ed classroom, it makes parents feel like their bright kid who is left behind will have no peer group and receive no academic attention from the teacher.

Where are you getting top 20%? Do you have a spreadsheet of COGAT and/or WISC scores for the kids enrolled in AAP? At our center, there are plenty of kids in high 90s not getting in. Obviously scores aren’t the only factor, but the easiest source of comparison.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/BPLQKV69B096/$file/FCPS%20final%20report%2005.05.20.pdf
Table 1 on page 6 shows 19% of FCPS 3rd-8th graders are AAP LIV designated, with another 7% comprising the principal placed kids and those taking all honors in middle school.
If you look specifically at the 2nd grade cohort, there were 13818 FCPS 2nd graders. 2198 kids (16%) were identified in that initial process. (table 4, page 9. It is not clear in the report whether this number includes kids in that 2nd grade cohort who were admitted through appeals).
There were also slightly above 400 non 2nd graders idenfitied in that screening cycle, meaning that a substantial enough number join each year after 2nd.