Anonymous wrote:Get your facts straight. No one here said that using study guides (which are commercially available) for the CogAT is unethical. We are talking about the WISC. Any competent psychologist will tell you that there are no ethical practice tests availabe for it.

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting to see how many parents trying to get into an advanced program clearly don't understand what it means to truly be intellectually gifted. Most kids, gifted or otherwise will prep for a standardized test like the SAT, but if you need to prep your kid for an IQ test like the WISC, they surely are not gifted. And as for the teacher who says some kids with learning disabilities might not do as well, the fact is that a fully battery of tests will identify and account t for the LD's and won't negatively impact the child's adjusted score, so that doesn't wash either.

Better to just admit that you want to child to be a high achiever or that your child is highly motivated on their own, regardless of IQ. Many kids who fall into the average range actually do better than gifted kids, both in school and in life. The higher a persons IQ, the more likely they are to suffer from a list of other challenges- emotional sensitivities, sensory processing issues, perfectionism, food allergies, etc. parenting a gifted child is no walk in the park, and watching your child fall apart in school because they can't deal with the boredom and the pace of the curriculum is upsetting and difficult. These kids have higher dropout rates and higher suicide rates that's the general population.

So, prep all you want to get in, but realize that there are kids out there that NEED these programs as much as other kids needs special Ed programs to make it through. While it might seem all the rage to be able to say your kid is in a gifted program, walk a mile in the shoes of a parent who is dealing with a truly gifted child before you decide it is the status symbol many make it out to be. This of us sitting in that seat would trade you places in a heartbeat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for the child of the 'tiger mom' who is being coached for the wisc. What pressure on a 7 year old. And is she scores well and gets in - then what. How will she feel when other children outpace her.

Tiger mom's kids will understand how to be prepared for a test or any of the other hurdles presented in life. They will see how competitive life is, and mature more quickly (its a fact and the advanced kids we are talking about here can handle it). Teaching your child how to be organized, prepared, and focused will lead to more success in a rigorous program, not less. People on this board cannot seem to get it, some kids are more inherently smart. Others have significant skills that can be honed to top form through hard work. Look at athletes for example, some superstars dog it and coast, whereas the "grinders" (like Rudy in the Notre Dame Movie) succeed from drive and dispite perseverance having lesser God given skill. I applaud the tiger moms for teaching the importance of hard work and preparation to thier kids as means to achieve success in academics. Too many fear that any "pressure" will result in their 7 year old being scarred for life. They are not made of glass. This is Romper Room compared to the programs of the Japanese, Chinese, Korean and many European systems where main stream kids this age are in school 6 days a week and studying English as a second language. The pathetic rank of the US in school in achievement versus these countries is evidence that we don't work the kids hard enough. Look at the ethnic makeup of TJ and you make the conclusion if the "culture and home value on education" does not influence as to which kids succeed.

Someday your kid will be calling the Tiger Mom's kid "boss".

No, someday my kid will be the Tiger Moms kid's therapist.

As a teacher of many, many years, I find that taking a sample test or doing sample questions is not 'cheating' or doing something unethical. I say this because many children that have come through my doorway have a reading disability, but are actually very intelligent. If a child does not know what the question is really asking, he or she may not know how to answer it. If they had done a question like that before, even though the new question is of a completely different topic, the child now understands what is expected of him. Many students do not have the support or encouragement from parents at home, and therefore are not exposed to the same learning environment as other children, however, this does not mean in any way that they may not be just as intelligent. I have seen some very shy, poor, homely, forgotten about children come through my doorway that when given some encouragement, care, support from me, end up being the hardest working and most intelligent in the room. I don't see any problem giving a young child a little practice test to ease their anxiety about taking a private test away from their classmates. It lets them see what types of questions will be asked, not EXACT questions that will be asked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am tired of all these whiney poeple complaining that others "prep" their children for standardized tests. I worked with my kid for weeks before the Cogat and Naglieri. We worked off the Critical Thinking Workbooks and the actual mock tests available from various online companies that provide study material and sample tests. When we started studying she would miss a few on each sample test. Over time we practiced looking for similar "types" of questions and worked on strategy to first eliminate wrong answers and narrow the choices down. She knew when to guess at an answer and when to skip a question to come back to it. By the end, she was scoring almost perfectly in the practice tests. Of course she did extemely well on the school administered tests. She was confident and relaxed for the test, and I am certain that our preparation increased her bottom line score.

There is no basis for saying it is "unethical" to prepare and study to do you best, no matter what the task. If her hard work and committment rewarded her by giving her a leg up on her classmates, then that is great, that is what America is all about.