Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion DS taking WISC soon; stakes are high; tips?

DS6 is taking the WISC (I think--we have not been told what the test is, but it is an individual IQ test administered by the school that will take about 2 hours) soon. I am confident that he is gifted, but not confident he will test well. He has not faced much challenge in his young life, and also has a tendency to fall apart into tears when things get hard. I think he does this much more with his parents than with other adults, but I don't know.

Unfortunately, the stakes here are high. He needs to get into the gifted magnet his sister attends (must score 130+), or we are facing some difficult/expensive choices. We put our eggs in this basket last year, but knew it was a risk. Hoping it was not a poor choice. Everyone at school seems sure he is gifted as well, but a test is a test.

I don't have much time (the school did not give us much warning), but any tips on helping him show his skills? My worries are twofold: 1) He will throw out careless answers because the kinds of tests he is used to consist of being asked to count three balls, etc; 2) He will freak out and lose his marbles when he gets to the first question that is really hard.

I don't really know anything about the WISC. DD took a different test.

ETA: I certainly do not want to prep him. I am worried about emotional/psychological aspects of testing. I have heard that some of the school testers are great and some are bad. Of course, no idea who he'll get.

Be well rested and fed.

Understand that the questions (in each subtest) start easy and get harder until you can't do them.

Relax and have fun.

I don't think counting to 3 is a major part of any of the actual IQ tests. Make sure he has good sleep fired etc. Tell him he gets to play some games with someone who works out how peoples brains work to help pick the right school and that he needs to answer seriously but not be afraid to take risks. My kids both enjoyed the testing though my younger one may have done better if he didn't run laps round the office between questions.

Ditto on the relaxed and well fed - a good night's sleep pre-test will be useful.

If he likes riddles and puzzles just tell him that he will be doing this with someone to better understand how he thinks.

Relax - kids pick up on their parents' stress and he needs to go in relaxed.

Tell him to have fun and enjoy himself!

Agree with the suggestions above, relax, sleep well, eat well, and enjoy. Hope you get an experienced tester. Psychologists who conduct iq tests generally know very well how the mood and mental state of the kids will influence their scores and they know how to build rapport with the kids first and help the kids get into a positive and happy mood.

I also think that not getting into the GT program is not the end of the world. I think you also need to relax. We have been in two districts, neither has GT programs of any kind. But both are top (or near top) districts in their respective states and many students in the districts are very accomplished.

Yep, well...with all due respect, not the situation here. I have an older kid, so we're pretty familiar with our options. If DS does not get in we have a complicated situation on our hands. I don't think getting in to GT programs is the be-all in MANY, probably MOST, situations. Because of how things work here and in our particular case (due to zoning), it matters a lot, unfortunately.

I am trying not to infect him with my stress. It's hard because his sister also is aware of the situation.

Sorry--I think I was unclear. What I meant was that his idea of school tasks is mostly what he got in pre-K and K--"How many balls does Jim have?" He's not really accustomed to anything being hard. He has a tendency to answer very fast and to pick the "easy" choice, unless you warn him to slow down and think. I know to do this, but you can see the concern. I am not familiar enough with the process to know whether testers pick up on this and work to help the child perform his/her best.

DD's school testing was kind of a black box for us; I have no idea what went down or how she reacted. I was not anywhere near the building, nor did I meet the psychologist. We received very few notes.

You're in a tough spot. On the one hand, the stakes are, as a matter of fact, very high. On the other hand, the generic advice "relax and have fun" and maybe "please try to do well" is still good advice. Maybe have him realize that doing well means school will be more fun, without burdening him with how unspeakably horrible the wrong school would be for him (and the family) if he doesn't do well enough.

Hi ultramarina, I am sure other will chime in with more expertise than I have. I do understand how you feel though - when it feels "high stakes," testing can be stressful to parents . Still, we need to NOT communicate this stress to our children. One thing someone here said previously that is SO TRUE though, is that one test is only "one snapshot" in time. One test does not define your child! Your child is still the same wonderful, amazing kid that you already know right after the test, as he was before it!

Truly, the best things that you can do are help you child to arrive at the test well rested, after having had a good breakfast. Also, we found this Aimee Yermish article helpful:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/test_prep.htm

Does the school truly just rely on one test, or do they have a rubric for their program (which includes other testing/assessment)? Do they have an appeals process if things do not go well? I do understand your stress (DD8 was in the same situation at school not long ago), but remind yourself of any "fallbacks" in case things do not go well. A six-year-old can certainly have a bad day, but if the score is an outlier among his other great test scores, perhaps you still have other options.

DD8 actually enjoyed most of the testing. A good tester (and I understand you don't have control here) will try to establish rapport with a child before they start testing. From what DD told me, she had a "good testing" experience at school. Many posters' children here have had similar experiences, so I do not think that you need to worry too much about this.

Wishing you and your DS all the best!

We actually made an effort to be too casual about the IQ test because we did not want to convey our stress to our child. The tester thought that my child was delightful and helped her learn a lot about the Avengers and particularly Ironman
For us, it was a very high stakes test - but, my DS is not mature enough to understand that it was a "make or break" sitaution. And knowing that "he had to do well" without knowing other things might not only confuse him, but stress him too.

My advise is as above - given the age of your child, just let him know that it is a "fun activity" full of puzzles, games and memory quizzes. And we told our son that there would be a very nice person asking him questions to see how his mind worked.

It turns out that he had a great experience during the testing.

PS: This happened a year ago when DS was 5. If it were now, I have a stack of Critical Thinking Company books and I would pull out some pages on figural reasoning and abstract reasoning (where DS is not his strongest) and ask him to work on them a few days before the test. I might also get out our tangrams, pentonimoes and pattern blocks and let him play with those for a few days. Not exactly test prep, but it might get the mind focused on thinking about such things.