I agree with those who have said that whether or not it gives you enough information is very dependent on what information you need. Could it be underestimating your dd's ability? Absolutely, in my opinion! My kids' EXPLORE/achievement testing scores didn't necessarily correlate that well with their IQ/ability scores. The kid who scored the best was definitely the one who had been exposed the most. My tested-PG child (who was not particularly interested in enrichment when she was younger-and who, because of different schooling hadn't taken many achievement tests) didn't score nearly as well as my more-enriched youngest child (basically, after really figuring out how gifted they were, we advocated for more enrichment, they did better on these types of test, they were given more enrichment... you see the pattern, right? :)). I'm not saying that there is no correlation, but your dd did really well, for anyone, but especially for a kid who has been rarely challenged. For my one ds who is very, very good at math, it's been wonderful taking an AoPS class. He is in gifted math (advanced two years) but could still pretty much sleep through the class. Taking a class geared towards gifted kids has been awesome - he is excited, challenged, occasionally frustrated (but in a good way - he seems to like it) and is thriving. If there is anyway you can get your dd into a class more at her level (on any subject) I think it would be great. This ds of mine didn't score as high on the EXPLORE math as his younger brother (though, granted, younger ds got a perfect score in 4th grade) but younger brother had been exposed more (different teachers, different principal). Once older ds had that exposure, he really took off. I feel like he's growing exponentially every few months. I really wouldn't take your dd's scores too much to heart, except to realize that they're great scores and would probably be even higher if she had the opportunity to be exposed to all this stuff. Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, the last few years in Reading, the score was dropped significantly by only one or two wrong. I know because our school (who uses it for 8th graders getting HS placement) put out a long explanation and said that they were no longer requiring a 22+ in reading because, I can't remember exactly, but I think one wrong got you a 21 or 22. Anyway, just something to think about.
Hope this wasn't too long and convoluted.
