Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment question about MAP testing.

I am new to all of this and have lots of questions. First we are not sure where my daughter stands as of yet and we are not sure if we should get her further tested. She is just starting 2nd grade and is young for her grade as she just turned 7. She, on this years fall MAP test, scored in the low 200's in both math and reading putting her in the 99 percentile. Her teacher has reason to believe that she is brighter that what the test shows as my daughter finds the test tedious and annoying. She is almost always the last kids sitting there as the questions quickly get harder and harder. She has admitted to figuring out how the test works and said when she sees the kids finishing she just answers the questions wrong so she is not the last one sitting there. She said that when she takes the time to answers the questions right as she did in 1st grade she is left behind alone and then has to take the test the next day. This all has in turn caused her a lot of stress.

My questions: Has anyone else found this effect from the group testing?
Should she opt out? If she opts out should we test her further and why? If we test her further what test should she take?

Welcome!

Two thoughts:

1. Since she's already figured out that getting them wrong ends the test, she might also want to know that the next time she takes this test, it will start her off based on what she did last time, so if she blows off the test at the end, it will start her with lots of easy questions, which will make the test longer than it needs to be. If she does her best, especially on the fall test, the next time the first questions should be harder, so she won't have to do as many problems, even when doing her best. (The fall test will almost always be long, because it's the first one of the year, and schools often reset the start point over the summer.)

2. Is this the MAP MPG (grade K-2) test, or the MAP 2-5 (grade 2-5) test? If she's scoring this high, she should be on the 2-5 test.

https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2015/01/MPG-to-MAP-Transition-Guidance-Document-JAN15.pdf

And one more thought: is she the last one finishing just because of how high she goes on the test, or is she often the last to finish tasks (even non-academic ones)? Because if the latter, then there may be other factors that could use examination.

thanks for your reply.

1) I will tell her that piece of info. She won't be happy about it however but perhaps she won't blow it off.

2) I don't know what test she took I will have to look.

3)She likes to take her time and really think about things, but is not slow at tasks. But really hates to be timed or asked to be on anyones timeline. For example they do minute math and she needs to answer a bunch of simple math questions in a minute she never finishes but always gets each one right. When asked more complex math concepts its no effort at all and will talk about for 20 mins.

DS13 and DD13 have been taking MAP twice a year for many years. However, they only have experience with MAP 2-5 and MAP 6+ and scores from the 230's. DS has never dip below 99th percentile and DD usually scores around 99th. I may be wrong but I think a lot more depends on a student's speed rather than how high he scores. For example, DS usually finishes first because he mostly only needs about 30 minutes for the 51-53 questions on Math and the 41-42 questions on Reading. The exceptions were when he scored above 300 in Math; according to him, the problems became more complicated and time-consuming to answer so he needed about 45 minutes, putting him behind a few students. DD, on the other hand, is a bit on the slower side so she usually finishes with the middle third or slowest third. It usually takes her more than 45 minutes and sometimes even 60 minutes so there have been times when she needed a second day to finish her test. However, there are usually other kids in the same boat and she wasn't the last one, When DD was in elementary, she did sometimes complain about needing more time to finish the test because she had some harder questions than her classmates. I challenged her to work faster because she tends to go slower than she needs and over the years she has gotten quicker.

I think it is reasonable for your DD to need more time if her scores are a lot higher than her classmates because more difficult problems can take more time. However, it is concerning that she is the only one because that means either there are no other high scoring (95th or above) students and/or she is considerably slower than her classmates. I don't think she ssould opt out of testing on that basis because test taking skills are important in the current educational system. However, it is concerning that she feels a lot if stress at her young age. Perhaps speak to her and have her teacher speak to her as well.

I think it is time to have an in-depth discussion with her teacher. I have to figure out which test she is taking and what is really going on during the test. thanks everyone I am new to all of this.