Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Explore Testing - Good for a Young 3rd Grader?

22B, colleges very rarely consider anything that happens before high school. Maybe they might be interested if you won Mathcounts at the national level, or placed nationally in a major HS academic competition while you were still in middle school.

My eldest knows kids who scored 2100+ on the SAT in 7th grade, but they didn't report those scores to colleges. Above level tests are great to figure out more about your kid's potential and abilities, but they aren't something to submit to colleges. If your child scores well on above grade level tests in 3rd, they'll score well on standardized tests in HS.

Small hijack- does it matter what grade your DC is in? If your 8 year old is a fourth grader, does it matter, or is everything by DOB?

Thanks!

Explore is by grade

That makes sense. If someone displays potential in elementary school then colleges would like to see them show they reached that potential in high school.

But if someone get Math SAT 800 when 10 years old, then that's much more significant than Math SAT 800 when 17 years old. The age at which the ceiling is reached is the relevant data point. I suppose someone with the early score should show they reached that potential in some other way, e.g. competitions, but still, reaching a high score young seems to be the only way to get around the low ceilings on those particular tests. (I can see that colleges won't care about EXPLORE scores, though.)

DS11 took Explore in 4th (he was 9). We decided to do it because we wanted to get information about what he actually knew at that point, and he really enjoys standardized tests so there was no downside.

We didn't get levels; he maxed out the test. Had we done it a year earlier, perhaps it would have shown us more-- I don't know.

The scores were later a bit useful in negotiating a subject acceleration, and in convincing the school that DS really is extreme in his educational needs, but anyone who knows him already knew that. Mostly what we got out of it was "whoa" factor for ourselves.

DeeDee

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.

DD doesn't suffer from too much test anxiety. She simply has needed to take quite a few tests recently.

To those who had a DC take Explore, did the Explore test give you a great deal of information that other testing (MAP, etc.) did not, or could not? How did the results of Explore testing compare with other tests your DC took? How did you use the results?

TIA!

Our district doesn't do MAP testing. For DS it was the first time he had been tested closer to his capacities, and he found it profoundly exciting.

Our school was not prepared to understand the results, so not much happened right away. We did use them later to argue (successfully) for a subject acceleration, but the district still insisted on doing their own testing, because they didn't have any context for what the EXPLORE result meant.

DeeDee

If your child is willing, I would recommend doing it at the younger age. I've only had one of my kids do the Explore. It was given through the school district but processed through our local talent search. It was in 6th grade and at that point it was not a very useful test. DD and several of her friends ceilinged parts of the test so there wasn't enough head room by 6th grade for the gt kids. DD got DYS level scores and had fun going to the awards ceremony but that was about it. At that point, DD was not interested in acceleration because she didn't want to leave her friends. If we had done the test earlier, she probably would have been more biddable. She has no desire to do any more talent search testing because it would require her to give up a day of her weekend.

None of my other kids have been willing to do talent search testing.

My ds took the EXPLORE in 3rd grade, 8 yrs old through NUMATS. He was always a good test taker so I wondered how the above level test would go. He did a wonderful job. We did the sample test so he would know what he was in for.

He always did well in math, but like another said I was really impressed with his scores in other subjects. He knew not to leave anything blank if it was possible.

It was great exposure to testing and time limits.

Thanks, everyone - you've brought up some issues I had not even considered.

DD just had to sit through Wechsler-variety testing on a weekend (OK, oddly, she said it was fun), so again with my guilt about more weekend testing . I think I could talk her into this, though, and I had not considered the possibility of being older and hitting the ceilings on this test.

If your child took MAP prior, is there a MAP/RIT score that is a good indicator of readiness for this test? I think she'll probably do great on any portion involving reading/comprehension, and probably science (she has been teaching herself various areas of science since she learned to read), but she has not had exposure to accelerated math - math at school has been differentiated for 3rd grade, but not accelerated (that isn't offered until 4th gr). She also doesn't love math (OK, she says she "hates" it right now), so there isn't much "afterschooling" going on in math (and I haven't pushed it because she loves so many other things). I hate to see her walk out of the test completely frustrated because of the math section. Still, I am so curious to see how she'd do on the rest...