Some people are naturally smart. Some are hard workers. They can end up at the same place in the end.

You don't want to prep- ie: work hard, put more into it, then don't. But be warned if your version of natural smartness isn't stronger than a preppers-post-prep performance, you lose. By the way, this applies to life in general. I wish there was a moratorium on working hard so I could coast easily on my naturally high iq, but alas there are people working their asses off and it is competition eventually.

Second graders learning a life lesson, if they care, and they don't, their parents do. I didn't prep my kid and he's in but it could have gone the other way. I wouldn't cry about unfair prepping.

Anonymous wrote:

"....The school is using these tests as one part of a process to identify children who need a particular type of educational situation. That's all- they are just trying to match the needs of the child to the most suitable classroom situation for each child to learn the most he or she possibly can. We adults have turned this into some golden educational ring to grab, but that golden ring is not necessarily the right one for each child.

Are you a school administrator? Do you know the school's motive?

The problem is not the child's environment, their exposures (first and infinity) and how much prepartation leads up to their first test...it's that school's use these tests (e.g, WPSSI, cogAT), with no positive predictive value in young children to long-term academic performance, to label, track and exclude these vulnerable children (who have no control over their circumstances save for guiding and nurturing patients). Herein lies the problem ... not with prepping or preparation for the test, evaluation, interview or play date.

As long as schools continue to inappropriately exploit healthy vulnerable children by discrimatory practices of school or classroom exclusion with "achievement" tests masquerading as 'ability" tests. The notion that a child who does extremely well on these tests (like the SAT-- "prep" or no "prep" whatever the hell that is) and then bombs and struggles mightly is essentially bogus. The latter issues are usually related to other factors not related to intellectual capacity (like poor management skills, ADHD or external adverse life events).

I may or may not be a school administrator, but you only have to go to the FCPS website to find out how the school district uses the CogAT.

No one can control for any and all possible previous experiences, good or bad, but the schools do the best they can to provide a strong education for all children. Children learn in different ways and the schools try to provide different types of teaching for different types of learners. Are the schools perfect? No, but most teachers really care about the kids they teach and want them all to learn as much as they can.

...The OP was referring to the type of "test prep" for the CogAT that involves knowing what test form will be used this year and what books to use or courses to take in advance. The OP was not referring to the general knowledge that a child had picked up from his parents or home environment. A child does not just "happen" to come across samples of the questions in the CogAT.

I agree, but tell that to the kid in Papua, New guinea or the orphan in downtown D.C. On the other hand, Mclean children with 3 or 4 sibs in private schools form and parents paying for surpervising their education and enrichment activities are significantly less clueless about CogAT and what the questions are like. It's all about child history, education in schools preparing them for the CogAT, exposure, and familiarity of the process and the test. The orphan in the middle of D.C. has no such luck or "first exposure".

"....The school is using these tests as one part of a process to identify children who need a particular type of educational situation. That's all- they are just trying to match the needs of the child to the most suitable classroom situation for each child to learn the most he or she possibly can. We adults have turned this into some golden educational ring to grab, but that golden ring is not necessarily the right one for each child.

Are you a school administrator? Do you know the school's motive?

The problem is not the child's environment, their exposures (first and infinity) and how much prepartation leads up to their first test...it's that school's use these tests (e.g, WPSSI, cogAT), with no positive predictive value in young children to long-term academic performance, to label, track and exclude these vulnerable children (who have no control over their circumstances save for guiding and nurturing patients). Herein lies the problem ... not with prepping or preparation for the test, evaluation, interview or play date.

As long as schools continue to inappropriately exploit healthy vulnerable children by discrimatory practices of school or classroom exclusion with "achievement" tests masquerading as 'ability" tests. The notion that a child who does extremely well on these tests (like the SAT-- "prep" or no "prep" whatever the hell that is) and then bombs and struggles mightly is essentially bogus. The latter issues are usually related to other factors not related to intellectual capacity (like poor management skills, ADHD or external adverse life events).

Anonymous wrote:How can you frame a test for first exposure for children?

Isn't this first exposure different if you are an orphan, live in homeless facility, child of a single parent, youngest child in a large family of 5 brilliant children, a child from Papua New Guinea or Chevy Chase, MD?

How do you even the "first exposure" playing field that is highly and immensely variable dependent on circumstances (environmental milieu) an infant has no control over.
How do you propose controlling for the exposure children have in their environments? If you think banning wrk books mimicking your glorified "aptitude" and "ability" tests will do the trick you are dead wrong. Your world view of the myraid of ways to mimic the concepts and tasks tested in these exams (aside of practise worksheets of similar test questions) is limited and quite restircted.

Your simplistic and reductionist view that any "prepping" for a test is limited and restricted to practicing similar questions from a piece of paper is flat out ludicrous in today's age.

Huh? That went a little over my head I have to admit.

How can you frame a test for first exposure for children?

Isn't this first exposure different if you are an orphan, live in homeless facility, child of a single parent, youngest child in a large family of 5 brilliant children, a child from Papua New Guinea or Chevy Chase, MD?

How do you even the "first exposure" playing field that is highly and immensely variable dependent on circumstances (environmental milieu) an infant has no control over.
How do you propose controlling for the exposure children have in their environments? If you think banning wrk books mimicking your glorified "aptitude" and "ability" tests will do the trick you are dead wrong. Your world view of the myraid of ways to mimic the concepts and tasks tested in these exams (aside of practise worksheets of similar test questions) is limited and quite restircted.

Your simplistic and reductionist view that any "prepping" for a test is limited and restricted to practicing similar questions from a piece of paper is flat out ludicrous in today's age.

The OP was referring to the type of "test prep" for the CogAT that involves knowing what test form will be used this year and what books to use or courses to take in advance. The OP was not referring to the general knowledge that a child had picked up from his parents or home environment. A child does not just "happen" to come across samples of the questions in the CogAT.

You can learn something about how a child learns by seeing how the child reacts to and deals with problems he or she has never seen before. A child can be taught to do these problems ahead of time, but then the tester is no longer learning about how a child deals with a new problem, is he? Yes, scores can be boosted by exposure, but when the point of the test is to see the the reaction to a first exposure, the test has been short-circuited when the child has had repeated and recent exposures to the same types of problems.

The test is no longer measuring how a child deals with a fresh problem but how a child deals with a problem already encountered many times. If the school personnel think they are seeing a score that reflects a child's first exposure to the problems, but the child has been shown in advance how to work out the problems and has practiced working them, than the score reflects something different than the school is looking for.

The school is using these tests as one part of a process to identify children who need a particular type of educational situation. That's all- they are just trying to match the needs of the child to the most suitable classroom situation for each child to learn the most he or she possibly can. We adults have turned this into some golden educational ring to grab, but that golden ring is not necessarily the right one for each child.

Anonymous wrote:
Prepping for a test that measures knowledge is expected

Prepping for a test that measures ability is questionable...in both ethics and effectiveness

They are not even remotely the same thing.

Tell me why prepping for any test alledged to measure "ability" is unethical?
and conversely, tell me why prepping for any test measuring achievement is ethical?

Why not make any "prepping" unethical?

It does appear that there are a lot of people out to make money from parents who want their children prepped for the test.

If you're not lazy or have time to supervise your children there is no need to spend alot of money "prepping" a child with what the parent has in her/his own head.

Anonymous wrote:It does appear that there are a lot of people out to make money from parents who want their children prepped for the test.

and who offer tests for those who wish to appeal. A cottage industry constantly flogged by a persistent poster on this forum.

It does appear that there are a lot of people out to make money from parents who want their children prepped for the test.

If there were a bigger market for cogAT (like SAT) and it were a requirement for all children in America entering schools I can assure you this entitity would change face in order to make some of the quid ($$) earned by the emerging private school test prepping cottage industry for youngsters. The cogAT "blue book" will soon rival that of the College Board for the SAT. The A will now stand for achievement test.

The SAT is not an ability test- see 00:29 above.

And this thread is not about the SAT; this thread is about the CogAT and other tests taken by first and second graders and used for identification of students for the Advanced Academics Program.

OK, since you may have some difficulty with the SAT analogy; CogAT and other tests taken by first and second graders are not ability tests. These tests are all achievement tests based on prior knowledge, exposure and familiarity of the first and second grader to the subject material tested.

The SAT is an achievement test, it is not intended to be an ability test. The Cognitive Abilities Test (or CogAT) is intended to be an ability test. One may or may not believe that it is possible to measure ability, but the fact remains that that is the intended purpose of the test. The CogAT and the SAT are different types of tests and are used for different purposes.

I sense you a coming around to the notion intent (PR) and reality have separate meanings. Since many individuals can boost their scores significantly with a little exposure and familiarity to the test (pick your favorite "ability" [A] test) it is near impossible to prevent advance exposure to test subject concepts, domains, threads in a society increasingly dominated by knowledge (information age) with increasing socioeconomic status (SES). Acquiring knowledge and information is powerful and not unethical. Knowledge is everywhere and acquisition and prepping is not necessarily confined to "bricks and mortar" salons and "test" review books. Welcome to the new age.

Gullible indeed. A sucker born every second.