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    #243370 07/30/18 12:46 PM
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    Hello,

    I am a 16-year-old student. A year and a half ago, I was fishing around for my old report cards when I found a report for a CogAT test that I did back in the third grade in February of 2011.

    Here are my scores:

    Verbal: 118
    Raw: 57/65
    Stanine: 7
    Percentile: 87

    Quantitative: 121
    Raw: 54/60
    Stanine: 8
    Percentile: 91

    Nonverbal: 123
    Raw: 59/65
    Stanine: 8
    Percentile: 92

    Composite: 124
    Percentile: 93

    Profile: 8A

    These scores were below the gifted program's requirements, which requested that either the composite score be above the 97th percentile, or 2 or more subtests be above the 98th percentile. However, that's not my main concern.

    While I have no issue with these scores, I have heard that a CogAT can give one a ballpark IQ score if the subtest scores are relatively at the same level, which in my case (as I have a relatively even CogAT profile) seem legitimate. However, at the same time, I have also heard that the CogAT only tests "learned abilities" whereas IQ tests look for innate abilities. Therefore, a CogAT score cannot give an accurate estimate of an IQ score.

    I ask this as I have been addicted to these notions for about a year and a half (addictively searching about high IQ and CogAT and correlations) and I want to provide myself with some closure. Taking into account the sides of the argument that I mentioned earlier in the post, my question is: Can an IQ score be lower than a CogAT score (i.e. CogAT 124 and IQ in the average range), or are both usually at the same level (IQ and CogAT both 124) if an even profile is achieved?

    Regards.

    Aden #243400 08/02/18 08:35 AM
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    Aden #243401 08/02/18 09:46 AM
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    aeh Offline
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    Welcome!

    Frustratingly, the answer is all of the above. The CogAT can be higher, lower, or comparable to an individually-administered IQ measure. It is usually somewhere in the same vicinity, but not necessarily. I wouldn't use it to estimate an IQ.

    But regardless of the "true" IQ score, you appear to be a bright, capable, and articulate young person. I hope you are finding your educational and personal development needs met these days, whether in or out of school.


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    Aden #243565 08/16/18 07:45 PM
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    Thank you so much for your answers! I do not remember whether I was bored or not in elementary school (don't remember any of it at all, to be honest) and in addition the district only tested students once. I think that the gifted program was useless in my school as it seemed that all the students did were art projects. However, I will probably take an IQ test once I am a bit older.
    Just one more question, if it permits. A PSAT score can be derived from an SAT score, and I have heard that SAT scores administered to 7th graders in talent searches can be used to derive IQ scores (read about it in a post somewhere). Is this plausible? It has also been said that talent searches are used to differentiate among students in the top 5% of standardized tests. Knowing this information, is it possible to predict IQ from a PSAT score?

    Regards again.

    Link: https://www.quora.com/How-do-people...-test-results-become-inaccurate-past-150

    (In the link, it is the first answer).

    Aden #243572 08/17/18 02:34 PM
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    I'll apologize for not checking my sources before responding...but my recollection is that it was possible to estimate IQ from SAT scores back before the reentering decades ago (I think in the late 80s?), but since then, changes in the population that takes the SAT (more diverse, which is good, but less homogenous, which makes it less comparable to past research, and less selective, which lowers the meaningful ceiling), and thus the norms, and changes in the nature of the test, away from more reasoning, and toward more achievement, have flattened its usefulness for estimating IQ. IOW, it no longer spreads the cognitive upper end of the population as well as it did a generation ago.

    It is still possible to make some estimates based on 7th grade SAT scores, but it is just that, a rough estimate.

    The PSAT is a different question. The most recent PSAT and SAT are on the same scale, which makes them a little easier to convert, but the old PSAT was not quite as comparable. Did you take the new PSAT, or the old one? You can also just use your direct percentile, if you took it at typical age (I assume you took it this past school year). That's a much simpler way of estimating ability from achievement, although it's still just that--an estimate.

    I looked at that quora answer: that is certainly a plausible approach to estimating IQ. I do know, though, anecdotally, that it doesn't necessarily provide much precision, since my personal data set of multiple related persons has simple differences of 10-50 points between SAT-generated estimates and individually-administered assessments, in both directions. And again, much of the data Lubinski, et al used was from prior versions of the SAT. I would say, though, that if a person is at or above the 50th %ile in the data set, that is a pretty good indication that that person has high cognitive gifts, since the pre-qualifying criteria for participating usually include previous assessment data in the 95th %ile or above (about 125 on tests like the CogAT).


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    Aden #243574 08/17/18 03:02 PM
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    I took the PSAT 8/9 as an eighth grader in October of 2015, the PSAT/NMSQT in ninth grade in Fall 2016, and the PSAT/NMSQT in tenth grade as a tenth grader last year. I use the 8/9 mainly because it was the test that I took without any preparation whatsoever. Yes, I know that SAT scores post-1995 correlate weakly with IQ tests, which is why I didn't use my more recent scores for estimation. Could my earliest score (PSAT 8/9) be directly converted to an SAT score?


    In regards to the study by Lubinski, are you saying that his research might be outdated for current versions of the SAT for talent searches?

    aeh #243576 08/17/18 03:20 PM
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    This thread is such a coincidence, as just a few days ago I learned that high IQ societies such as Mensa and Triple 9 accept SAT and GRE scores (from earlier years only) as qualifying scores. I had been reading a Slate article that defended the use of SATs in college admissions, fell down a Google rabbit hole, and found myself reading about this. I hadn't even heard of Triple 9 before. Anyway, I thought it sounded kind of nuts to use these achievement tests as proxies for IQ, especially when I realized that I would qualify for both societies (Mensa easily according to both tests, Triple 9 according to GRE scores, barely). In your professional opinion, aeh, do you think this approximation is justified? I have no skin in this game, as I have no interest in joining such a society, but I was a little startled as I have never had an actual IQ test and never would have pegged my own abilities that high. My DH would qualify for both as well, so that may explain a bit about our son...well, to some extent (his brain seems capable of feats that neither of us can quite understand).

    Emigee #243579 08/17/18 05:21 PM
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    emigee, I've had the same thought about Triple Nine. Mensa has relatively low standards, so that one doesn't surprise me as much. The rationale, I believe, is two-fold: 1, the population that took these tests in those eras was pre-selected for the upper few percent, so the tests effectively spread out the right-hand tail enough to discriminate scores above +2 SD; and 2, the earlier tests were more aimed at "aptitude", meaning reasoning ability or learning potential, which better approximates the same qualities assessed by IQ tests.

    The first assumption has changed in recent decades, since the push for college for all (SATs and ACTs), which has since morphed into post-graduate for all (GREs). Some states even use the SATs as a state-mandated high school exit exam (much to the delight of the College Board), which means that every single high school student is expected to take them, a far cry from the data pool up through the early 80s, which was a relatively stable top 10-15% of the educational population (sadly, with no allowances made, of course, for economically, socially, or instructionally disadvantaged populations with no access to the test or its preparations).

    The second assumption has changed as the test has become more focused on acquired skills, partly, I suspect, in response to the movement away from liberal arts, and toward school-to-work in education.


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    Aden #243583 08/17/18 08:56 PM
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    I have also heard that Triple Nine Society still accepts ACT scores of 34 or higher for their society. Why is that so, if the ACT is an achievement test?

    Aden #243614 08/21/18 05:37 PM
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    Yes, Lubinski & Benbow did that research on the old SAT, so those estimate formulas do not apply to recent SATs.

    As to the ACT scores for the Triple Nine Society: that is a private organization; I cannot speak with any certainty to why they continue to accept the ACT. I assume their psychometric consultants have some data that support this decision. My speculation would be that the fact that the ACT has not changed significantly in decades helps them to have some standard of comparison. It's also the case that achievement tests do have some correlation to intelligence (overachievement is not hypothetically possible, after all), and a composite score of 34 is a pretty low percentage occurrence. Based on the published tables, it appears the population mean in the standardization sample was a score of about 16, with a SD of about 6, and +3SD thus falling at 34, corresponding to the 99.9th %ile. Note that DYS also allows certain achievement tests to be used as proxies for cognitive ability.

    The current SAT is less usable for this purpose, when given to typical-age students, because the 99th %ile is about 780, which doesn't leave much headroom to spread that last percentile. It still has some utility for above-grade-level testing, which is why the major talent searches still use it, but since they keep changing the test, it becomes more difficult to do longitudinal research and comparisons. (Also see the comments I made in my previous post.)

    More straightforward method of estimating your rank in the population (not your IQ):
    Here's the percentile table for the PSAT 8/9 the year you first took it:
    http://www.nwgjb.com/upload/files/20161010155620550.pdf
    The national 50th %ile for total score is 820, with a SD of about 155, which puts the 99.9th %ile at about 1285.

    I hope this satisfies your curiosity, at least a little bit.


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