Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Good standardized test takers?

That's kind of funny - DD is doing best in AP French, with a 99. She loves it. They are together on the love of Quiz Bowl and Sherlock, though.

I think some people are especially good at taking standardized test, just as some people are inexplicably bad at it. My DD shows a natural facility for anything multiple-choice. Her math HW sometimes has some multiple-choice and she tends to cross out the obviously dumb answers and pick one of the best two based on hunch. At least, I think this is what she does; she's good at working problems in her head, but not so good that she could do some of these without any writing. Also, she'll admit she didn't work the problem. "This one looked right." (She's often correct, but not always.) Her father is also an exceptionally good standardized test taker. I'm pretty good, too.

I have two siblings whom I'd assess as fairly similar in intelligence. One is a good test taker and the other is not, alwasy underperforming his apparent ability. Perhaps not coincidentally, the one is good is highly confident and relaxed in daily life; the other is more anxious and more of a second-guesser.

Yes, some people are just really good at tests -- I'm one of them!

I have always liked tests, and I can pass a test on something I don't even know. Case in point, I got the highest score the recruiting office had ever seen when I took the ASVAB (aptitude test for military) in high school -- my best score was in electronics. I grew up in an electronically-gifted family, but my mother and I always walked off shaking our heads when "the boys" started "speaking electronics", and I knew next to nothing about it. Yet somehow I nearly aced the test. I have no idea how -- I just have an understanding of tests.

It's much more useful to be able to pass a test without knowing the stuff than the problem so many other people have, which is knowing the stuff and freezing up on the test!

LOL... you reminded me of when I took the much shorter practice ASVAB in my recruiting office, which was just a quick assessment of basic math and language. I came back from the other room in ten minutes, told them I was done, and the response was, "Did you answer ALL the questions?" Uhh... yeah.

Obviously they were pretty impressed when they sat down to score the thing, but I remember the recruiter reacting with glee when he found one math problem wrong. Since this was all such painfully obvious stuff, it made me sad to think people were struggling with it.


You probably absorbed some things just by being in that environment. But it's also worth noting that "Electronics" isn't a test section. It's a composite score made up of four test sections: Arithmetic Reasoning, Electronics Information, General Science, and Math Knowledge. A mathy/sciencey mind could still get a very good Electronics score without actually knowing anything about electronics. That's by design, since if you have the other aptitudes that's fine, they'll train you.

Hmm...must have been the "Electronics Information" part, then -- I don't really remember, but I know there were questions about diodes and resistors and capacitors and all those other little parts whose names escape me at the moment. It was a long time ago (1987, but who's counting?).

I always said I must have gotten it through osmosis -- and despite all the effort I made to NOT learn any electronics!

We were looking at colleges that give scholarships for National Merit Students and started asking what she wants to major in/do as a career. She responded with Medicine, which is what we were expecting, but then commented that she's scared of the MCAT (other than medicine/anatomy, she likes science, but doesn't LOVE it...). She then got curious about the entrance exams for other grad schools and noted that the LSAT looked really easy and actually fun. She proceeded to take an entire exam (with the time constraints, of course) and got a score in the high 160's. 4-5 years before everyone else, without an ounce of studying, and with music blaring, she was already in the mid-90th percentile... She's now considering a career in law :P

Seriously, though, I think it's true that tests are almost a game for her, and that's definitely an awesome mindset to have... (sadly it doesn't really extend to actual tests for school...)