Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Wacky Test Scores

My daughter's is quite intelligent and her ITBS test scores prove it. She got a 99 in Science, Social Studies,Reading and Language and a 96 in Maps and Diagrams,but a 67 in Math! How did this happen?

It is often best to discuss scores and their interpretation with the test administrator or school personnel as they have the full context for your child's testing experience, purposes, cohort, etc.

In general, your child scored better than 99% of the cohort in many areas and better than 67% of the cohort in math.

You sound concerned about the math score. There may be many reasons, and you may wish to explore this with the test administrator or school. For example, the cohort could have a relative strength in math, have had more exposure to math, more practice with math, or it might be a relative weakness for your child, your child may have run out of time, or not finished for other reasons (being distracted, etc). While one could guess at many plausible explanations, conjecture does not serve to get to know your child's profile as seeking the facts does.

It could happen for many different reasons - one very simple thing might be that she was answering on a bubble sheet and accidentally skipped a line, and then all the answers after that were wrong just because she wasn't putting the answer on the right line. Sometimes kids rush through tests quickly and don't check their work. Maybe the math section was late in the day or right before lunch and she was hungry and just not interested. Maybe she works more slowly at math and got every problem she worked right but didn't have time to finish. Maybe she is a very very smart girl who's strengths are in places other than math. Maybe her school curriculum didn't cover what is covered by most children in her grade level in math so she doesn't know how to answer some of the questions.

I wouldn't put too much meaning into one lone outlying score. I would ask to see the full test report if you can, so that you can gather any knowledge that's available - ask if you can see how many problems attempted vs how many correct etc. I would also ask your dd if she remembers anything in particular about that specific part of the test. And then I wouldn't think about it anymore unless either:

a) She needs higher math scores to get into a program you want her in. If that's an issue, show that the math score is anomalous and ask that she be tested again or ask that she be allowed in based on math grades or examples of her math work etc.

b) If she seems to be struggling in math or isn't getting good grades in math in school. I suspect this isn't the case, but if it is, it's worth looking into further.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Something similar happened to my DD this past fall on the NWEA and I posted here about it as well. It turned out her lower score was the portion of the test that she took when she came home from school with a 101 degree fever. I talked to her teacher about it and confirmed the actual date of the test and it was indeed the day that she came home from school sick.

Was your DD sick during the time that the math portion was administered?

At conferences her teacher said she was glad I had made the correlation and that is why it is so important not to categorize a student based on a single test score.