Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion EXPLORE TEST

How were his sub test scores?? That composite is pretty darn high for 4th grade!

DYS qualifying scores

EXPLORE Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6
English 19 21 23 24
Math 16 18 21 24
Reading 18 19 22 24
Science
Reasoning 18 20 23 24
Composite 17 19 21 23
Must meet or exceed on at least three out of five scores above.

It depends on what you were hoping to see, but it still sounds like he did really well -- remember it's against 8th graders, and you'll know more when you compare to other kids in the gifted pool. I thought it was interesting to see how the 8th grade numbers compared later to the talent search grade levels. DS's science reasoning was his strongest, and he said he learned some new things from it.

If it's any consolation, my DS got that same math score, even though he had 3 DYS qualifying scores, and it was his lowest score. Average for math among 8th graders was 15.5, and among the gifted 4th graders average was 14.1 (according to ACT).

In the interpretation guide, it came to the 87th percentile against 4th graders in the talented pool, 66th against 5th, and 39th against 6th graders. He said he left two unanswered in math -- that's always where he gets stuck, timed math. But it's even more clear to me that he's not getting sufficient extension instruction in math (as if his complaints aren't enough), particularly compared to the 6th grade talent pool. So I found that valuable!

Not DYS level (he is DYS) . I am interested to see what the talent pool results say. We were hoping that the scores would be high enough that advocacy would be easier if we move, especially if we need to try to get him into a gifted program. These don't seem to show DYS level work, particularly taking into account that he's in some 6th grade classes. Other standardized tests have been at the maximum scores (grade level-tests, though).

Composite 18
English 16 (92% in rhetorical, 61% in usage/mechanics...)
Math 16
Reading 18
Science 20 (I think he said this was the hardest!)

We're wondering if the math scores may show that the instruction (6th grade level) he's getting is not sufficient. He really should have done better there, I would have thought. He said he finished everything and went back to check his work.

I think that's just a formatting error, the test is Science Reasoning. The scores may not by DYS, but there are just under. I think it's still an impressive tool for advocacy. It's still above the 60th percentile, and it's also great against the gifted cohort. I'm not sure how it'll help in our school even having DYS numbers.

Thanks, I just caught that, too!

I believe the subtest is called "Science Reasoning," but was split into two lines in frannieandejsmom's post (probably because it was copied out of a table). The scores are pretty close to DYS scores, except for English. I think you might still be able to use them for advocacy, but I don't think most schools "get" Explore scores, anyway, so I'm not sure how much good they would do. I suspect you'd be better off sticking to the maximum scores on grade-level tests for many school districts.

Thank you. I'm thinking you might be right about which scores to use... was just thinking some above-level scores would be useful.

We received our explore scores as well. I am puzzled about the English vs Reading scores. A large gap has shown up between them (Reading is 5 points lower than English). Everything else is quite bunched. They were exactly the same last year.

My DD (Grade 4)did indicate she was reading slowly so did not answer the last 4 questions on reading (left them blank). Could this be the sole cause or are there other issues to consider?

ConnectingDots - I believe that those scores would have been DYS-level up to the last "update" to the requirements. They are very good scores.

We also had a rather large gap between DD's English and Reading when she last took it. DD's English score was much higher.

DS's Reading was 3 points below English, but higher than Math.