We had an interesting experience with our state standardized test that I think might be worth sharing...
First of all, we homeschool, but are still supposed to take the standards tests in 3rd, 5th, 8th, etc. and submit them to our educational services district. So, in the spirit of complying with all applicable laws and rules, we did so.
DD did fine, hitting the ceiling on the verbal portion and scoring at grade level in math. The math score surprised me (she is a lot less confident in math, but is still working above grade level and doing fine).
Her feedback on the math was extremely enlightening. She indicated that the test was really frustrating because she didn't understand some of the terminology used and didn't understand what some of the questions were asking. Or she said she the problem made sense but none of the answers seemed to align with the problem in any way. From the examples she remembered right after the test, I agreed. Her also HG/PG friend told her how they spent time in her accelerated school doing "kinds of problems" learning specifically for the test and far below the level they were actually working at. That is the teachers focused on "these are the kids of problems you will see on the test" exercises to help these kids (who again, were advanced in math) be more comfortable with how the testing experience would go.
It seems logical that the lack of this type of targeted instruction coupled with her lower level of confidence in math overall may have given her an artificially low score. This did nothing to improve her confidence by the way.
As a coda, when I attempted to submit her official scores to the district, they refused to accept them because they lost the earlier paperwork and don't actually communicate with any of the schools DD previously attended. That will certainly inform our decision making in the future.
