Hi y'all! New here - I tried the search engine but I'm not finding what I'm looking for. I'm hoping you can help or point me in the right direction please. My 3rd grader tested above 97% on verbal testing and was suggested she take the SCAT for the John Hopkins program. I looked at some of the samples and they are nothing like what she works on now. Are there any resources that you can recommend that have practice tests or samples for her to work on?


Also, while she scored very well on her schoolwork, she is apparently not in line socially, performing at more of a 1st grade level. Any suggestions for books for me (or her) to help us work on her socialization skills?

Thank you in advance!

Allegra

Basically bumping for you in case someone else has more information.

I believe the Johns Hopkins site has some sample questions and information about the format of the test.

Thanks for the help in the test taking. She's used to taking AR tests at school but since she's in a private school, they really dont do much by way of standardized tests. I'll just work with her on the format they have so she understands the questions they are asking.

As far as the social thing goes, she does not work well with others - she prefers to go her own way (which is much like I was for most of my school years) She tends to try to dominate and does not really have a good friend. She does feel the lack but doesnt understand why the "girls" dont want to play. She is much better friends with the boys for sure.

I dont allow a lot of "tech" in our home so she doesnt have a phone or know how to text like the "cool girls" in her class. Thats not something I am willing to bend on though so just need to work with her to help her play appropriately.

I don't know about resources but my 6 yr old took the test this year and due to me not reading up on it ahead of time, he didn't finish the math section. Make sure she guesses answers before time runs out because you don't get taken off for incorrect answers. My son missed out by 1 question... My bad.

I may be the odd person out here, but I wouldn't worry about prepping for the SCAT, other than letting your dd know where she'll be taking it and perhaps going through the sample problems on the CTY website. I found it useful to see how my kids scored on it without prep, and it sounds like your dd has strong verbal abilities based on her other testing. Has your school promised some type of differentiation based on the results of your dd's SCAT score? Or are you thinking of enrolling in CTY programs?

polarbear

The Critical Thinking Company has Thinkanalogy puzzles that are pretty good practice for the SCAT verbal.

Or are you thinking of enrolling in CTY programs?

This.

Something else I thought of - we were considering the SCAT for our younger daughter since she is not old enough for any other form of "talent search" type testing like EXPLORE. We found out that she would do her testing in a large room with other kids, teens, and adults taking various other tests. We had concerns she wouldn't feel comfortable or be able to truly concentrate in that type of testing environment. You might want to check into how and where the testing is done.

I was going to start a thread but I might as well ask here. We were thinking of having DS7 (Gr 2) try SCAT this school year in the absence of other "talent search" type testing. It would be purely to "see where he is", and maybe to get accustomed to testing. I'm pretty sure we'll have him try EXPLORE in Grade 3.

Is there really any point in having him try SCAT in Grade 2?

Our son's getting a good score on the SCAT in grade 2 encouraged us to think he would be ready for the EXPLORE in grade 3, and his good score on that suggested taking the SAT in grade 4, where he did very well on the math.

We'd probably have him try EXPLORE in grade 3 regardless (then wait and see for SAT in grade 4), so I don't feel we really need the SCAT in grade 2 result to make a decision. On the other hand it's not much time, effort or money to take SCAT so my real question is would he be missing anything much by not taking it.

Another question is, he'll be fine with the level of math in EXPLORE when he's in grade 3 (it's grade 8, right) but he won't be near that level in other subjects. He'll be fine with the math level, but he'll be out of his depth in other subjects. How is it for little math whizzes to take these above level multi-subject tests when the other subjects could be a write-off?

My ds took the SCAT in 6th grade. He was able to take it in a Prometric Testing Center, which had lots of cubbies and was pretty quiet (Prometric, here anyway, is mostly for things like professional licensing exams, so the crowd is pretty tame, age 18+ and serious).

We found NO commercial SCAT prep materials. To my mind, the big task was just to get him comfortable with the instructions and the expectations of the test. So we sat down and went through the CTY samples. Then I wrote a couple of additional problems based on the CTY samples, just so he could feel comfortable with the process.

Other than that, you could do vocabulary prep, since the verbal is all analogies (as I recall). We did not do anything like that. The math is quirkier; not sure there's any way to prep beyond understanding the instructions.

What's the motivation for taking SCAT?

To answer 22B's question: our motivation was that it is the entry point for CTY's summer programs and year-round courses. The SCAT score determines what kinds of courses the child can take.

Thanks. That wouldn't be a reason for us. I guess I'm not seeing a strong reason for it. I think we'll wait for EXPLORE in grade 3 instead.