Originally Posted by Dottie
Well, I'm officially back down on planet earth. We did get the Explore scores and they are NOT what I was hoping for, particularly in math of all things. Go figure!

I'll start with DD11, because she really improved quite nicely! She's solidly in the "GT" mean range for 5th grade, with only English a little on the low side. This is truly great for her, and she had excellent growth from last year. Remember too she had extended time. She's pretty solidly above your average 8th grader as well! She's nowhere near DYS levels (not that I expected that).

Then there's the boy. He did go up in every category, which of course is nice, but his math went up the least! I was shocked! shocked But here I am sharing the good with the "bad". His math is still quite high, still at the 99th for his age peer GT pals, but only low 90's for his current peers in 5th. I'm impressed anew with Jen's daughter's (higher!) scores!!! DS seems more "well rounded" this year, but he only hit 3/5 benchmarks for the DYS criteria as a 4th grader.

Anyway, at least the darn things finally came, and I can move on with my life! I had hoped to end this test on a high (ceiling) note, but now I'll have to reconsider again for next year. Maybe I should induce fevers for all his testing...

Dottie,

First of all, it's good to have your long wait over!!! The good thing is that your DS improved in each category. Your children are most definitely gifted. Since we didn't get the GT comparison numbers in our packet, can you tell me what those are? For example, what are the GT peers comparisons that you refer to? We only got a comparison to a 8th graders sampling and that to me didn't make much sense.

Also, since the test makes a recommendation for classes to take the following year (if I understand correctly), what are those recommendations supposed to be? Does it give you who is at grade level and who should take Algebra, pre-calc etc. the next year?

Again, I think those a fantastic scores.

Jen