Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Ceilings on WAIS lll

I am new here and happy to have found this forum. I have a question about the WAIS, is a ceiling reached when all the questions in a subtest are answered correctly or when the questions run out before you reach five wrong answers in a row?
My DD recently took the test and had two subtests where she answered all the questions correctly and with all the other subtests the most she missed was two before the questions ran out. Either way should the result be viewed as an accurate
score?

When all subtest questions have been answered correctly, that's definitely a ceiling. Not getting 5 wrong in a row may or may not be a ceiling depending on how many wrong she got in total; after all one can make several mistakes, just not in a row and that can't be considered a ceiling. In general, a ceiling is reached when one obtains a scaled score of 17 (99%ile) or higher for a subtest.

To know whether your daughter reached ceilings, look at her subtest scaled scores.