For those parents who don't need to test early, but who have a hunch that their children are a little "extra", I can now say from personal experience to trust your instincts (and, if you can, save the money on unnecessary testing fees).

DS7's school performs achievement testing as a benchmark of student performance to validate internal standards at the end of 3-year cycles. I had never had reason to test DS before, so this was our first exposure to any formal assessment.

It turns out DS hit a ceiling on all the verbal tests and is performing a bit over 4 years ahead of age (+3 on grade) based on the questionable "grade equivalent" standard. DS' teacher's comment, "Which surprised no one." LOL.

Math is about a year ahead of age (2 adjusting for the fact that he took an end-of-year test in October). Because he lacks automaticity in math facts, this came out as a relative weakness, since he was unable to complete the full math sections. Will be interested to see how that math score balances in a few years. Given that he just telescoped 2 grades, I feel this is a conservative placement.

In regards to test prep, I recommend what we did - absolutely nothing. DS had a good sleep the night before, and I told him he was going to get to play some fun puzzles. He thought it was a hoot.

Thanks Portia! Me too. I wanted it to be no big deal, and that materialized.

PM’d you.

Was this an IQ and achievement test, or just achievement? Trying to work out what puzzles would be in an achievement test lol.

Just achievement. I told him to treat every question like a fun puzzle.