Either your tests are unbiased and meaningful and any prep is worthless... or whatever you are testing is arbitrary and I would be naive not to prep. You can't have it both ways.
I disagree. My eldest son at age 8 got a 700 on the math SAT in part because he was "prepped" -- he had worked through Singapore Math and EPGY through Beginning Algebra and taken the math section of two practice SATs. But for almost all 8yo's, including my younger two, SAT math "prep" would be an exercise in utter frustration. My current 8yo dabbles with algebra but keeps thinking that 5x^2 really means 25x^2 -- and that's OK.
In short, the ability to benefit from test prep is itself g-loaded.
Agree. I think acceleration in of itself can be considered 'prep' for
achievement tests like Explore, since ultimately accelerated kids are the ones likely to ace Explore at an age that matters. And yes the ability to benefit from such 'prep' is g-loaded.
Prepping for an
IQ test though, I think, is really crazy since the results will be meaningless. I don't think Justin Chapman's mom had any good excuse for what she did which was simply cheating and teaching her child to cheat.
Pretty much sums my thoughts up.
DD, for example, who was +3y accelerated,
easily topped the ranges reported by TIP for agemates on not only the ACT but also the SAT.
But then again, she had an advantage that many of those 12-13yo students do not have-- she was a high school junior, see.
I also wanted to underscore Bostonian's point that the ability to BENEFIT substantially from test prep is itself a g-loaded activity. This is how I view Amy Chua's memoirs, as well-- that is, sure, she was a helicopter parent from hell, but even so, her kids wouldn't have been experiencing the LEVEL of success that they have achieved without being gifted to begin with. KWIM?
That doesn't make such pressured parenting
right in a moral sense, I think; but it does explain that there
still isn't really any secret sauce for "creating" a HG+ child. Not starting from a NT one, anyway-- and even starting from a MG one, there is a viciously high price to be paid for doing this kind of thing.
As for this particular instance, yeah-- that is WAY beyond the pale.
