Post deleted per member request

I always wonder about this sort of thing with the prepping that goes particularly in NYC-type places. I read one article about one of the tutor places parents send their kids to prepare for the test. The article specifically talked about how this child said to the tutor after so may sessions - "You don't need to tell me the directions I know what to do." I always wonder "do they prep the kids on how to not make it obvious that they had been prepped?" If not, isn't obvious all the kids have been prepped? Doesn't that invalidate results? Is it only the WISC that is spoiled by prepping? I thin kthe article was about the COGAT.

I couldn't "prep" my son ... He'd tell the tester right away. And anytime I tell him not to tell someone something then it becomes that he HAS to tell. The night before his OLSAT test I told him about the test - just to assuage anxiety and I told him it would be like his mind-benders and analogies book that he has done on and off with DH in the past(somehow DH got it in his that mind-benders and such help with critical thinking and got some book called mind-benders to do with him). Anyway, I told him I though the test would be like that. (I wasn't even sure!) Well, because they were concerned about his vision disorder and accommodations, he took the test with the school psych (instead of with the class) and he told her he practiced the test! She didn't seem concerned but I was really embarrassed. He never "practiced the test"! And he hadn't done the mind-benders book in like a year, I think.

This ends up being a really interesting question. For the record, I am an adult who took child IQ tests (most likely, just two separate administrations of the same Stanford-Binet L-M IQ test) by teacher referral at elementary school age. Much later, I had occasion, for online discussion of education policy, to begin reading about the enterprise of IQ testing in general. I eventually discovered some of the practitioner handbooks about IQ testing (note: NOT the actual test manuals) used then for current adult IQ testing.

Then, still later, I had occasion to take an adult IQ test. (The current test in that year was, if I remember correctly, the WAIS-R, but it might have been the WAIS-III.) As the test session began, I was asked by the test-giver, "Sometimes people have taken IQ tests before, or they've read about the tests so that they are familiar with some of the test items. Please let me know if any of the items we work on seem familiar to you, okay?" I told her up front that I did some reading about IQ testing and it might be possible that I'd find some items familiar. (The practitioners' guides to IQ testing are quite interesting in what they attempt to keep secret about test item content even as they introduce concepts related to correct administration and interpretation of tests.)

As I took the test, which I surely had never taken before, I did indeed encounter some items that were unfamiliar to me, and yet easy to figure out because of things I had read. I let the test-giver know as that happened during the testing. The test-giver, on her part, made sure to give me additional items from other, much more obscure tests. (It was years later before I figured out what test published before my dad was born was used to fill in for the Wechsler items in testing my vocabulary. That subtest is really cool.) If I remember correctly, the IQ test and accompanying memory test (the Wechsler memory test is actually designed to be given during an IQ test administration, so that the delay in recall is enforced by being busy with something else) demonstrated that I didn't have a memory issue to worry about--which had prompted the testing. The test-giver noted that there were some real difficulties in determining a valid WAIS IQ score for me, because of my recreational reading, but ventured a characterization of my general level of verbal ability based on the supplemental vocabulary items I was administered. Any responsible test-giver MUST note when a test-taker's performance is far outside the norm. To do otherwise, and especially when there is any doubt about standardized conditions of not having access to the test item content in advance, is a violation of professional ethics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/u...e-faked-tests.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

I don't know about the original poster but when I "briefed" my son all I said was:

Someday soon, someone (and you will never have met this person before but the guidance counselor will introduce you) will take you out of class and work with you for a bit for day or two. You will do learning games and puzzles and small little tests. These activities are just so that we can all learn all about how you learn so that we can help you do the best you can in school. Try your best on every question and you are not expected to know every question but don't give up keep going. And if you need a break or to go to the bathroom, feel free to let this person know whatever you need.

And then I never mentioned it again.

Other than saying there will be a variety of puzzles, games and questions, please listen to the "teacher" and do what she asks...I don't think you should explain it to them.

The first IQ test I took (in first grade) was a COMPLETE surprise to me. I wonder if my parents were even told in advance that it would happen. I was asked to leave my classroom--which had never happened before--and taken to a small room with a man I had never met to do the test. (The protocol of the test includes letting the test-taker know that the test is about how smart the test-taker is, so I would have learned that just as I began.) Certainly, today's era of parents knowing the brand name of the test in advance, and letting the children know when the test will occur, and ANYTHING about test procedures, is at least somewhat different from the test conditions existing in the era when I took my test.

This thread prompted me to look up an old news story. One link is in my earlier comment above. Here is another:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1853847.stm

I wonder what ever happened to that poor kid. I've done a google search and it looks like his life was unstable for quite a while, but I couldn't find anything after age 14.

My son recently took the Wisc. When the tester gave me the results, she first quipped, "well you didn't prep him, like so many of the parents who come through here." At first I thought she was joking, but she was dead serious and my jaw dropped when she recounted how often it happens. We live near one of the big cities on the east coast. I just couldn't believe it. I suppose my naivete was showing, but I am still shocked that it is as common as it is. And what happens when the kid finds out someday that the parent attempted to cheat and inflate the results of the kid's IQ test? Yuck!

Right, chalk and cheese weren't the words. What 22b did a good job of illustrating however, is that the answers given were not only transposed, but sounded like formal dictionary definitions.

Mmm, my own children certainly don't talk like dictionaries, and they are slow/deep types not fast... Slower than a wet week comes to mind when thinking of my kids... But I do know children who both sound like they are spouting dictionaries and who are exceptionally fast... So hard to know what is going on here, it's very worrying either way really. What Ultra Marina said:

Am I really naive? Can one buy the WISC test? I would think there were structures in place to prevent that. Is there a black market in this or something?

When you google, you could see what's in the WISC IV. Block design, matrix reasoning, etc... and the parent finding sample and showing the kid (although exercising/practiciing on those may invalidate the test result IMO) may have been fine.

But the 2 different vocabuary words transposing is a serious red flag. The website said you can buy WISC IV for $1069 from Pearson. I hope that they would demand the buyer is a qualified tester. You never know some parents may go out of their way to get their kids labeled PG/EG.

I personally do not care if MG kids became PG/EG by coaching but the resources are limited and it is a shame that some deserving kids not get the opportunities (like in NY).

In NYC prepping is such a big deal. The private schools use the WISC, although they call it the ERB because of the office that administers it. The report written by the psych would be a huge red flag there. Hunter elem uses the SB V, they use most but not all of the subtests because of the cheating. When DS was tested, the tester mentioned that one of her testees had to be reported and that 3 kids that year had been disqualified. Rumor has it they re going to create their own test because of the cheating. In some cases it's not the parents per se, its that they send the kids to prep places, and those places cross the line or are on the line. The NYC DOE actually gives a sample test for familiarization but that opens the door for prepping as well.

A lot of the preppers argument is that if you can prep a 97 to a 99 and that just shows its meaningless, however, teachers and admin have told me that they can see the difference which is why they care beyond the cheating aspect.

DeHe

This is what I was wondering about - these prep places in NYC (are they in other places? As far as I know there are none in my area but if there were I am sure it would be FILLED), are they considered "cheating" by schools and official testers? If the tester were to ask the child if he or she went to one and the child answers affirmatively would the child then be disqualified? Or if the child offers the info? I can't imagine my child is different that he is the only one who would pipe right up that he "prepared" and give plenty of details....Are not the other children doing this? If I were to tell my child NOT to say he studied, I am pretty much sure he would tell the tester anyway - particularly if asked (he doesn't like to lie). The poor kids, many must feel very conflicted because I can't imagine how one would accomplish this for most of the kids without the children feeling like fakes, frauds or cheaters, ykim? I guess what I am curious about is what/where exactly is the line? Are the prep places disqualifying? Does saying you studied at all disqualify the child? Or does there have to pretty hard evidence that the child actually practiced the real test? I am just very curious about it all. And VERY relieved I don't have to deal with the NYC madness - that sounds like a veritable nightmare.

How does it work for children who prep but truly aren't that high on the IQ scale once they land a seat in these schools? I guess their parents just prep them for the school tests the same way.

To answer the general question in this thread, the expectation of IQ test norming is that the item content of the test will be a surprise to the test-taker. Yes, there are definitely examples in various places (not just New York City in the United States) where children can become familiar with the test items either through formal prep courses or through playing various kinds of games. Of course, a vocabulary subtest is a part of almost all IQ batteries, and some children will have life experience of using the vocabulary that happens to be sampled on a particular test and some will not.

By contrast (I have another Gifted Issues thread in mind as I type this), part of the standardized conditions for administration of the SAT or ACT is that each test-taker receives a full sample test when registering for the test, so that each test-taker can in principle prepare in the same way by working through the sample test with actual test-taking time limits. Not doing that is to be a chump. I know a human intelligence researcher who argues that testing under that kind of condition, in which item content and format is disclosed to all test-takers, is actually a better test of intelligence than attempting to surprise all test-takers with items that may in fact be innocently familiar to some test-takers.

Just an FYI - I deleted the text of the original post per the member's request. If I would have outright deleted the post, I would have had to delete the entire thread; thus, I only deleted the portion of the thread that was directly related to the OP. Since the discussion branched out a little, this allows it to continue.

Our tester said the same thing. She said it's incredibly common for kids to have seen the test, not just been prepped (in her experience they were sourced through relatives or friends on friends who are psychologists). At dd's previous school (a top performing public school) the principal was very wary of IQ tests because he'd seen so many psych comments noting it appeared the kid had been prepped and in some cases parents had submitted doctored test results!! How any parent could think this kind of approach will be of any benefit for their kid is beyond me. The flow on effect was this principal doubted everything we said and it was eventually clear we weren't going to get anywhere so we left.

We're very far away from NYC and competitive lottery seats for gifted programs, so I can't speak to that. We do have a HG school in our area though, and I've known several families who pushed to have their children admitted by submitting private testing. We were told by other parents and also warned by the school when our ds was entering K that some of the psychs in our area would do everything they could to "help" the kids do their best on the tests - not outright cheating but there was a definite concern on the school's part that certain psychs were consistently giving out IQ #s that didn't hold up through the years, and a general belief among parents that if you wanted the best shot for your child to meet the program benchmarks for admissions, you could more easily achieve that through certain testers. I also know a few squeaky wheel moms who talked their child's way into the program by explaining away scores that didn't quite meet the program's requirements. Soooo.. what happened to those kids? Within a few years of entering in K-1, most of them either left the program voluntarily because it was difficult for them, or they were asked to leave. The program doesn't test every child every year, but they reserve the right to retest (IQ and achievement) at any point in time), and basically the kids who didn't really truly meet the program's high ability bar showed up as kids not able to keep up or somewhat different than classmates in ability, and they were retested and asked to leave.

Note - this is all "old data" as my kids are long past kindergarten so I'm no longer in the loop for kindergarten testing gossip

polarbear

I'm feeling a little bad here, though, in that we're all pretty much accusing the OP of exactly what the psych did: cheating to increase the scores.

I guess that, either way, it does answer the question that the OP had about submitting the report as it reads to her dc's school. It is pretty clear that it reads as, "this child was taught the answers before taking the test," and that isn't what anyone in their right mind would want to give to the school.

As to the argument that intelligence is better measured by what one can learn with preparation, it is interesting, but until IQ tests are designed with equal prep opportunities built in for everyone, the reality is that it turns into comparing apples to oranges when one person is pre-taught and another is not.

We've kind of found the opposite where I live. So many of the kids in our GT classes and programs don't really meet the qualifications that the programs and classes themselves, for the most part, have just changed to fit better for the demographics of who is in them. For instance, for kids who didn't hit the 95th percentile in one area (ability & achievement) piece on the first go round, many were retested until they did often with prep and others were let in anyway with just achievement and some other supporting piece like behavioral characteristics of giftedness or something else subjective. The outcome is that we have no programming for gifted or certainly HG+ kids. It makes it such that even MG kids benefit from acceleration beyond GT like subject acceleration and sometimes grade skips.

I feel a little bad too. Here is what I imagine happened. Mom innocently and with good intentions took kid to a test prep place. Unbeknownst to mom, prepper crossed a line. Either that or the kid is freakishly PG.

I'm afraid this is the case here too...