If your child is willing, I would recommend doing it at the younger age. I've only had one of my kids do the Explore. It was given through the school district but processed through our local talent search. It was in 6th grade and at that point it was not a very useful test. DD and several of her friends ceilinged parts of the test so there wasn't enough head room by 6th grade for the gt kids. DD got DYS level scores and had fun going to the awards ceremony but that was about it. At that point, DD was not interested in acceleration because she didn't want to leave her friends. If we had done the test earlier, she probably would have been more biddable. She has no desire to do any more talent search testing because it would require her to give up a day of her weekend.
None of my other kids have been willing to do talent search testing.
