Hi Theresa, thanks for the interesting questions. It is interesting to contemplate what this all means. So I would be willing to share.

I do think he has a high ability. He is also generally curious about Science topics. This is his second time taking the test. He took it in 3rd grade Composite 15, English12, Math 14, Reading 16, Science 18.
His schooling situation. He is in a regular 5th grade class. The gifted services are once a week pull outs for verbal and match. The school he is at is a title one school with a larger minority/low-income population so it has more emphasis on the other end of the performing spectrum. The school hasn't had some of the extras that other schools in the district have like Math Masters or Destination Imagination. Not an ideal situation. His teacher says at conferences that he spends lots of time reading (sounds like my entire school career) and occasionally the teacher would like his attention but also admitted that he is getting the material. Next year should be better. He is going to be in a highly gifted middle school program. Basically a choice school where the gifted kids are collected in one middle school class which allows the teachers to go at a faster pace. My DD was in the highly gifted middle school program and it was good for her.

I think generally it has been noted that Math scores are not as high on this test because they haven't been exposed to the material. One thing I noticed when I did the practice test with my DD when she took the test is that the Math portion is that she didn't make use of the calculator and tried to do problems by hand. That seemed to be one of the biggest problems is lack of judgement on when to use the calculator ... rather important on a timed test. Her scores in 5th grade were good Composite 18, English 18, Math 15, Reading 17, Science 20. Not as good as her brothers. I think exposure to the test in 3rd grade, hearing me mention the calculator issue several times, and maybe being identified for gifted services earlier may have contributed to his better score. Or he could have just been having a better day ... it is hard to say with testing.

Shelly