The most surprising part of the Explore for us was the Science. I expected this to be her weakest area due to not having the exposure in school. She aced that one, though, and as far as we can tell from what our kids reported, it actually required minimal content knowledge.

I found this with ds10 as well - he got a 22, which is in the 95th%-ile for 8th graders - and he has NO interest in science. They do almost no science in elementary school and it is not a topic about which he chooses to learn.

(As a current 6th grader, she is in Honors Algebra.)

Is this a normal option for 6th graders or is this because of outside testing? Here, where 9th grade algebra is the norm, it would be very unusual to allow this.