Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, many kids in this area prep. Were in a high SES school and child reported after the test that many kids had seen those questions before (which to means there was some form of preparation at home). Teacher never went over the format or any single sample questions in class according to same child.
I don't know if you want to call this unfortunate. We bought (or borrowed) COGAT and NNAT books off amazon and had my kids take some practice tests (on paper) mostly to get familiar with the types of questions. I also helped to strategize how to pick the answers by elimination method instead of picking the first answer that appears to be correct. I don't think the books really helped them become any smarter, but I would say they helped in making fewer mistakes overall. I told my daughter a thousand times to slowdown and take as much time as possible while answering questions, but she said she finished NNAT in under 10min and cogat under 30min (each day) or so as the questions were way easier than the ones she practiced from books. Anyways, both my kids got into AAP with comfortable scores. Honestly, I wouldn't blame any parents/kids practicing for these tests with easily available books and in fact we gave away our borrowed books to my friends kids and the cycle continues. Honestly, I don't think books don't do much other than familiarity and/or avoiding easy mistakes.