Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAPS testing questions

I learned that my 7 yo dd who is starting the g&t program next year will have MAPS testing in the Fall and Spring.

-Is MAPS timed?
-Are they multiple choice questions?
-I have heard that COGAT isn't always a good test for identification purposes for g&t. Are there any issues like this for MAPS and how certain kids do on it?


Anything else I should know? So far dd who is HG has yet to be challenged in a classroom and we don't really do any after schooling or enrichment. She basically hasn't been exposed to higher level instruction and I'm concerned what effect this may have on her MAPS results.

MAP is not timed. It is a multiple choice adaptive test. As the child answers questions, the test will get harder or easier depending on if the child answers the questions correctly. NWEA uses the 95th percentile as its gifted cut off. That being said, it is not an IQ test. Many gifted kids are asynchronous. It is a snap shot of one day. Many things can affect a child's score. My dd only scores in the 92-95th percentile on MAP. My son scores in the 99th percentile of several grades up. Both are gifted.

I want to clarify that MAP (NWEA) is not SUPPOSED to be timed. I've run into several situations where schools were effectively timing kids because they only had the computer lab reserved for one hour for that class for math and then another class will come in. According to NWEA, and their plans, if the child is not finished, they can stop and come back later. But it has been my son's experience, as well as my research experience, that doesn't happen as often as NWEA would like.

NWEA also says that they recommend that kids scoring in the 95th percentile or above be "considered gifted".

That is a surprisingly low standard. A 95% for grade-2 math MAP score is 209, which is only 44% at grade-4.

I read on the Australian Mensa page that the top 5% is the international definition for children.