That calculator was an issue for my DD too. She felt like it would be "cheating" to use it. I thought after not finishing EXPLORE and our conversation about how the calculator is actually assumed to be in use during the test, that she would "get it". Apparently not--only a few weeks later she told me she was the last done for a math placement test--she didn't want to use the calculator if she thought she could figure it out on her own
(I'm realizing that we are missing an emoticon--where's a good old mental head slap when you need one???). While mental manipulation of number is a relatively strong point for DD, she is far from instant in her processing....
The whole question about how to interpret is tricky. For instance, it would
appear that DD got almost everything she actually got to correct (I think she had 2 wrong on reading, 1-3 on science depending on how many she actually left blank). On the one hand, that seems pretty impressive to me. On the other hand, there are obviously plenty of students who are able to do that AND finish the tests, which she did not.
When I look at placement recommendations that are based on EXPLORE scores they seem--with the possible exception of DYS--to be somewhat low relative to DDs performance. Yet,the idea that DD has exceptional math strengths has been dismissed pretty consistently by the school, and up until this year, she has received precious little in terms of acceleration (mostly random independent work for 2nd, 3rd and 4th without monitoring/guidance/feedback).
So I find myself confused. Are the majority of (out of level) EXPLORE test takers actually not from the upper end of the acheivement/ability pool? Do all mildly/moderately gifted kids test well above the mean in most subject areas and it is really only the 20+ scores that indicate anything out of the typical range? And then I wonder about the time factor. If she were really gifted, would she finish everything (keeping in mind that she is 10/5th grade)? I wasn't surprised when she didn't finish everything last year, but this year I have to admit that I didn't expect so many blanks. If she were really gifted, wouldn't she just know the answers and move quickly through the questions? Or, is her lousy sense of time/pacing not very relevant and the telling factor is her accuracy with what she has done? She grew in both english (3 points) and math (2 points) as compared to last year, despite having LITERALLY no instruction in either for her 4th grade year, and little in the way of writing this year (her growth was all in style/rhetoric--she had already hit ceiling on grammar/usage). If the test is out of level and she grew without instruction, is that meaningful, or is it just to be expected because she's a year older? She didn't grow at all in science and she dropped a couple of points in reading, but both reading scores were above 20, so pretty much at ceiling there.
I don't expect anyone has the answer to these questions, but I'm thinking maybe other parents with kids somewhere below DYS levels are pondering the same questions, so I thought I'd
muse obsess out loud...
