I promised Inky that I'd post about our experience with my son taking both the primary and secondary MAP test this year.
Because we "homeschool" through a virtual academy, we have the unique opportunity to take the MAP test at home, where I can observe the test. After observing my son take the primary test, I felt that he probably hit the ceiling on the math portion of the test and asked the school if he could take the secondary MAP so we could get a more accurate picture. They agreed and he took it today. Here's how the test results differed for my son.
Language Usage
Primary Test: not given
Secondary Test: 212
Reading
Primary Test: 206.5
Secondary Test: 205
Math
Primary Test: 216
Secondary Test: 226
As you can see, the reading test scores were pretty comparable. The math scores, however, were way off. This confirms that the primary test does have a ceiling, and that young gifted students may benefit from using the secondary test if their scores are pretty high.
One thing that was interesting to me was seeing the differences between my 9 yo daughter's test and my 7 yo son's test. My daughter's best subject is language arts; her language usage test was MUCH harder than my son's test and her score reflected that. My son's best subject is math, which was also reflected in the scores. Despite being two years younger, their tests looked similar and my son scored 2 points high than his sister which is exactly what I expected as they've completed roughly the same math curriculum. Their reading scores also reflected what I would have expected based on my observation of their reading abilities. There was one really odd score in my daughter's test that I have yet to figure out what happened.
