Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Cogat verbal score makes no sense

Dd6.9 is grade skipped and in 2nd grade. Her school administered cogat for selected 2nd graders earlier this year. Dd was exactly 6y6m when she took the test. Anyway, we got the scores today. Fortunately, she has been accepted into the 3rd grade learning enrichment program. However, I am a little surprised at the verbal score. Her sas in verbal is 119, grade percentile rank 47%. Isn't this really low? She completely bombed the picture classification section. What does this mean, if anything? She reads at 5th grade level now and even her teacher has her reading 4th grade level books. She is very articulate and talks both beautifully and with a great sense of humor. I always assumed she has strong verbal abilities. So confused now what the test actually measured. Any ideas?

CogAT Verbal for 2nd grade is entirely pictorial, and doesn't include any printed words, so it doesn't measure quite the same constructs as are represented by advanced reading ability.

Thanks aeh. I did not know that. So what does the verbal section, specifically the picture classification section measure?

[quote=LovemyddHowever, I am a little surprised at the verbal score. Her sas in verbal is 119, grade percentile rank 47%. Isn't this really low? She completely bombed the picture classification section.[/quote]

I don't think the numbers she has are actually low - they aren't hitting the ceiling gifted, but they aren't low. An SAS of 119 is close to 80th percentile for age. I'm guessing the grade percentile rank that you have is a local percentile for your school district rather than a national percentile; you mentioned that the Cogat was only given to a select group of 2nd graders, presumably students who are thought to be possibly gifted - this right away takes out lower ability students from the bell curve that's used to compute percentiles from local scores. I wouldn't worry or overthink the 47th percentile for grade. (Again - take this with a grain of salt - I'm not a professional, just guessing based on what I understand of CogAT scores).

I also wouldn't worry too much about the CogAT in general - there are quite a few of us here with students who score very high on individually administered ability tests such as the WISC and yet didn't score anywhere near as high on the CogAT (my ds is one of these kids). One difference between the CogAT and the WISC is that CogAT is a "learned ability" test whereas WISC is an "innate" ability test - meaning the scores on the CogAT can be impacted by acquired knowledge and learning environment.

That's awesome that your dd has been accepted into the 3rd grade learning enrichment program!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Agreeing with aeh. Years ago I gave my son the 2nd grade CogAT and watched as he misinterpreted several pictures while knowing full well what the words meant.

Thanks polarbear. I am very proud of my dd for doing so good despite being young for grade. I have read many posts on this board to know not to take cogat scores very seriously.
Kai, thanks for sharing your personal experience with the picture classification test. I can see dd doing that.