Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Legitimacy of vocab gains

Hello. A while back I made a post about how I scored at the 99th percentile on the KBIT verbal as a child, but scored significantly lower on the WISC as a teenager. Between maybe the ages of 11 and when I took the WISC, I don't think I gained a whole lot of vocab as I have trouble finishing books due to inattention. However recently, it seems that I've gained a significant amount of lexical knowledge and I fear that it may be illegitimate. I've certainly been interested in psychometrics for a few years, and have learned some words in the context of testing, whether that be when reading about it, or from random online vocab tests and old manuals (e.g., 1916 SB). I recently had the chance to take the PPVT-4 and obtained a standard score of 138, however I learned at least one word from a random online vocab test, and encountered at least one other in a very old manual (not that of the PPVT, of course). I think I've encountered those words elsewhere as well, but don't know if I'd have gotten them. I've also forgotten many words, which makes me doubt my ability significantly. My long-term recall ability seems to be inconsistent. Anyway, I guess I'm really wondering if the source of the vocab doesn't matter as long as there wasn't prior knowledge of what the specific test items would be.

I'm also curious about how much reasoning analogies require. I managed to get ahold of some genuine pre-1995 SAT forms, which contain both antonyms and analogies, and I seem to be quite good at both item types, with the antonyms + analogies composite (they called it the vocabulary subscale) appearing to be roughly +3 SD. Some regard them as having significant reasoning requirements, however others consider them to measure nothing more than lexical knowledge. The old SAT V also appeared to be pretty difficult to train for, with one meta-analysis predicting that it'd take over 1,000 hours of training to gain 40 old SAT V points artificially. It appears that I could subtract 40 points and still be at roughly the 99th percentile according to the national general population normative data that I found, but I still fear that it could be inflated due to vocab. Apparently Cecil Reynolds regards antonyms as tapping reasoning in addition to general vocab, as there seems to be reasoning involved in determining which option is the *most* opposite of the word listed. I also found a book containing an analysis of the GRE analogies, and they reported that on average for the items analyzed, only about 10 percent of the variability in item difficulty was associated with the rarity of the words used.

Another odd thing is that there is some data indicating that I am better at analogies than antonyms; for example I beat someone who got 160 PPVT on a collection of old GRE analogies, and that makes me think that they have to measure more than just vocab, however I am still uncertain.

Nice to hear from you again, viktor!

In answer to your first question: no, it doesn't matter where you learned the vocabulary, as long as you weren't prepped on the actual test items. You still know the word. In any case, you don't report recognizing many words from other tests, just a couple.

And secondly, yes, there is some relationship between both analogies and antonyms and verbal reasoning. Similar tasks occur on some individually-administered cognitive instruments, like some versions of the WJ and the SB.

The heavier reasoning weighting of the pre-1995 SAT is why it was chosen by late 20th c. researchers in giftedness for studying very low incidence academic giftedness. They (mainly Julian Stanley) made some estimates of the average cognition of SAT-takers at that time, and used SAT scores as a proxy for IQ in students taking it out-of-level.

Current forms of the SAT are better described as achievement tests.