Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy TOMAGS and SCAT scores - confused

Hello! I have a 3rd grade son who is old for his grade. He is already 9. He was tested for a gifted math program and received the following scores:

SCAT - 95th Percentile (raw score 36/50)
TOMAGS - 23rd Percentile (20/39)

As I understand it, the SCAT tests achievement. The TOMAGS tests aptitude based on what has been taught previously. The TOMAGS is comparing him to others in fourth grade who have already received 3rd grade instruction, whereas he is just beginning 3rd grade. I am trying to decide if I should push further? He only needs an 80% on the SCAT to pass but really missed the mark on the TOMAGS.
thanks for your thoughts!

I'm sorry; I don't know anything about a TOMAGS but I wanted to bump this post up so you could get answers. Is the SCAT compared with other 3rd graders? What is the goal of testing--is it to get into a gifted program or pull out?

On which set of norms did he receive 23rd %ile scores? The NT norms or the gifted norms? And was he administered the primary (k-3) or intermediate (4-6) level? If he's in 3rd grade, I'm guessing he was administered the primary level, in which case he is not being compared to same age/higher grade kids, but actually same grade/younger kids. Your scores suggest that he may have been compared to the gifted norms, as otherwise this would be pretty discrepant results. 23rd %ile is slightly below average--presumably for an identified gifted student. That is not entirely inconsistent with 95th %ile on a third grade test, especially with a kid who is old for grade. (Of course, as SouthLake indicated, we don't know what the norm group for the 95th %ile was, so not sure if any of these assumptions are correct. Do you know what the norm groups were?)

Is the SCAT the CTY SCAT? If it is, I know a little bit about that one, but nothing about the TOMAGs. When my kids took the CTY SCAT it was normed above grade level (and maybe normed on a group of gifted students), and the test was multiple choice given on a computer.

FWIW our ds had a *hugely* discrepant math achievement score once on a standardized test - the score was due to his skipping a line when copying test answers to a bubble sheet, and not realizing he'd skipped a line - so he kept going after the skip thinking he was copying his answers to the correct line.

If he still remembers the tests, you might want to ask your ds if he remembers what the problems were like, did he finish all the problems, was the test timed etc. You can also ask the school if you can see the reports that come with the tests - although I'm not sure you'll see much with a CTY SCAT report, other than the group it is normed against.

Let us know what you find out!

polarbear

eta a snide remark (sorry I couldn't resist!) - I googled TOMAGS and saw a note that it compares favorably to the CogAT. Which is the one "ability" test my EG ds did not score all that highly on lol! There was also a note that there are two norm groups for the TOMAGS, one is a gifted group - so I'm guessing your ds' test was normed against the gifted group.

I thought only CTY gave the SCAT, and always compared with 2 grade levels up? DD did the SCAT last year, in 2nd, and was given a % compared to 4th graders. I think the grade level was listed as the "form" on the results sheet.