Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Anyone ever retest with SCAT

Not a huge issue but DS7 tested last week on the SCAT, it was not the best day for him, he was feeling sick that day, and by the afternoon had a pretty good fever. He is grade skipped and tested as a 3rd grader. His math was good 48 out of 50 giving him a 469 or 97%. However his verbal was a little low at 30 out of 50 for a 430 at a 52%. Because of the 430 (Needs a 435 for 3rd grade) he is not elegiable for language art classes. Does JHU allow for re-testing, is their a wait time, or should I push because he would have qualified as a 2nd grader. This is not a big issue, but we may want him to take some language art classes this summer.

Awesome score on the math, Edwin!

Yes, you can take the test twice a year. Not sure what the wait is. I think there is a page on the webiste about applying to retest.

I don't think there's a wait at all, yes definitely he can retest, up until the 15th of feb, I think for eligibility.

Thank You, I will follow up.

Thank you Dottie, I will have to see what DS7 wants to do for summer. We are looking at the JHU Science program, or maybe a writing program.

Here's a link to the currently available courses.
https://ctyjhu.org/summer/ysopencourselist.cfm

Or... to look at it from the reverse, here's a list of full or canceled courses:
https://ctyjhu.org/summer/fullcanceledlist.cfm

From the CTY website regarding re-testing:
http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/faq#Courses_1
Dandy

Hi Dandy

Thank you for the links, and the re-test info

DS7 did the re-test on SCAT 3rd grade. He was sick the first time, so we thought he should re-test. He had a 430 on verbal and because of the grade skip he just missed the 435 cut off. On the re-test he recived 33 out of 50, 430 again (Consistant at least) he had 3 more correct answers, but I guess a few more students did a little better on this test. On the math he recived a 47, which is one less then last time (Still consistant)but received a higher score of 473. I guess less students did as well on math. Oh well, we will have to look eleswhere for a summer writing program. He still may take one of the summer science class's. Note just less then 24hrs to get results on line.

It does seem strange how the raw score to scaled score conversion changes depending on the version of the test. You would think that they could have balanced the questions somehow, so that both versions would yield similar scores.

At any rate, your DS's math scores are consistently excellent. Congrats!

If you were looking for online writing classes, you might want to look at Northwestern CTD's Gifted Learning Links.

Yes different norms, eY1 the first time and eX2 the second time. Quick note that if your child tests within 3 points of making the minimum there may be a little bit of wiggle room. At least that is what they told me on the phone. I e-mailed them to see if they would make an exception for a grade skip score (Yes I want it both ways)for a 2nd/3rd grade summer writing course.

Was it a choice to have him test as a third grader since he was grade skipped or could you have had him test as a second grader?

The have you test the grade that they are in, not by age.

Beats me if I understand this. I think I won't even try. The snow must have melted a little bit in Baltimore as we finally got DS7 scores. He got 49/50 on eY1 in math but his score is only 472. He did quite well on verbal too (for a bilingual mathy kid who doesn't care about LA). He got 439 (85%).

LMom,

Was your DS testing as a 2nd or 3rd grader?

LMom great scours for your DS7, on the ey1 test DS7 3rd grade result was 48 out of 50 for a 469, a 472 for a 49 out of 50 seems about right. A 477 is 50 out of 50 as I understand it. On the eX2 a 47 out of 50 gets a 473. I just look at it as different tests with a lttle different norms.

He tested as a 2nd grader. I believe the scores are the same for the 2nd and 3rd graders, right? It's just the program eligibility that is different.

Edwin, I understand what you mean but to be honest I would expect the norms to be pretty much the same across all the tests.

LMom,

I agree with you about the norms. It's odd, but the different versions of the test DO have different norms.

However, looking at the bar graphs in the Score Interpretation Guide, there is only one score higher than 472 for the 2nd/3rd grade Quantitative. So it makes sense that 49/50 would convert to a scaled score of 472.

Hoping I can piggyback on here?

My DD8 just took the SCAT on Monday. (Yes, it was the last day, but it got bumped a couple times for an impromptu vacation and then snow.) Her verbal was good (42/50) for a 451/90th percentile. She missed the math cutoff with a 30/50 for a 433/42nd percentile. But she told me she didn't finish the math section because she got stuck on a couple questions and only answered "thirty something" questions. For those who are curious about such things, she took version EY2.

I am wondering if there is any reason to re-test her at this point? We are interested in a summer camp, but it's a humanities camp so she is fine there. But would it make more sense to re-test her now vs waiting?

I feel a little bad because I don't think I prepped her properly. She has anxiety and I did not want to overprep her and make her more nervous. But I think she would have done better on the the math if she was more familiar with the format. We only did the practice exam on-line at CTY. She did the verbal in about 10 minutes. They came out and told me she clicked through her break and I expected her done quickly on math as well, but she took the full time and did not finish.

BethG,

What grade is your DD in?

Sorry, she's a third grader.


Yes, that is what started to happen with her, so I just backed off. Oh well.

I would probably wait until next year. If you retest now, you are sending your DD the message that she didn't do well enough. That may just increase her anxiety. I would wait until next year, and then do the mini practice tests with her before she tests. Emphasize that it doesn't matter how she does. If she wants, she could set herself a reasonable goal (e.g. trying to complete, say, 40-45 problems on the math test).

Just wanted to chime in with my family's experience. Ds in second grade last year took the SCAT and qualified for math courses at CTY, but missed verbal qualification by one point. He was a very inexperienced test taker (attends progressive school where they never call anything a "test"), and he took his sweet time on all of it, finishing neither section (only got to mid thirties with each section I think). Even though he was only interested in summer camp programs for math/science, I thought we should have him try again on the verbal (without letting him know he had missed it by one point). So he took it again fairly late in the season (May I think) and this time I told him "try to work faster, see if you can finish!" On the second go-round his verbal score was substantially higher than math, and he was recognized for his high scores at one of the CTY award ceremonies. I thought it was interesting that the verbal score in particular jumped so much when he made the effort to finish. So, if your child did not finish and just missed the cutoff, I would recommend having the child try again. For my ds it is all good practice. We seem to have an issue with inconsistent performance in general, and we are trying to figure that out (which is another story). But in the meantime I am delighted ds has qualified for all the programs for his age group at CTY. This summer he will do a program "inventions" and he is really looking forward to it.

HannahZ, thanks for that. Yes, I think if she had finished she would have qualified. Like the PP mentioned, she had difficulty, even on the practice tests, with not wanting to do the problems logically vs computationally. We struggle with this on her homework too, so it did not surprise me.

Partly I am wondering if there is an advantage to retaking the math test now as a third grader vs waiting until next year when she would have to take the 4th/5th grade test.

Do the scores carry over to the next year? Will she need to retake the SCAT next year anyway or will her scores from this year count for next summer?

If I am not mistaken, she can take the test as late as June 10th or 15th, and they will still use the 3rd grade cutoff for qualification. If you wait until the fall it will be a different test and higher cutoff as well. If you are going through JHU CTY, I know the only thing you need to do soon is request the retesting ID number (they send you a new one) which you then use when you register her for the SCAT test. You could request the retest number, then wait and see how you feel about signing her up to retake the test. I personally think it is great practice for the kids, but one has to be careful to present it in a positive way, so the kids don't feel unnecessarily stressed. Good luck!