My 8-year-old is going through the GATE screening process at school. Yesterday the GATE teacher had her whole class do a creativity test. The kids were given several different shapes and told to draw one or more pictures with them. My DD drew a detailed beach scene. She made a crab from the hexagon, a towel out of the squiggly lines, a moat for her sandcastle out of the semicircle, and a boy on his knees in the sand out of the other shape. From her description, it sounds very detailed and creative, but how is this scored?

I'm confused, and this whole process bothers me!

Sounds like a nice picture. Not sure how this is scored, and I would take every group IQ test with a grain (ok a bucket) of salt.

It would be ideal if every GATE screening test used tests that correlated with the type of program being offered. If the program stresses creativity, then creativity tests are appropriate. If the program is heavily into math, then screening for math interest/ability is appropriate. There should probably be many different programs for the many different strengths kids have.....that's more of a goal than a reality.

Smiles,
Trin

I'm glad you said that. It seems as though any scoring method on this would have to be somewhat subjective. The school system can use any three performance indicators in the matrix, so why creativity? I don't really understand the process. It seems as though they don't really tailor the screening process to fit the kid's strengths at all. Oh, well. I'll stop ranting now.