Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Preparing for Explore Test

I have been looking at this forum for a few months, but this is my first post as I just now have a concrete question. I appreciate any insights anyone here can provide.

My twins just turned 10 yo (4th grade) and will be taking the Explore test for the first time this month. I have a question about how the difficulty level of the actual test compares with the sample questions found at the ACT website. We downloaded the sample questions and had the kids do them like a real test. I removed the answers from the test sheet and prorated the time; i.e., the actual math test has 30 questions and a 30 minute time limit so I gave 10 minutes for the 10 sample questions.

We told the kids that we signed them up for the test so that they could get used to tests where they can't do everything and where they are time constrained (unlike the state testing they do at school). However, dd completed all four tests within the time limit, and in a couple of cases had several minutes to spare. And of the 45 questions on the 4 tests, she missed only one. Ds took a little longer and missed 2 questions.

So the sample test did not really give them any practice with budgeting time and dealing with questions they are unsure about. We are curious about how similar the actual exam is to the practice questions? We have been telling them that they can expect more challenging questions when they do the real test, but we really don't know if this is true. We'd love to hear about others' experiences. Many thanks!

My oldest dd took the EXPLORE at age 9 as a 4th grader. Like you, the only prep we did was having her do the sample questions from ACT. In her opinion, the actual test was much harder than the sample questions. I'm not sure if it was the set-up of taking it a a university or the time pressure or whether the actual questions were harder (which is what she seemed to feel).

Although I haven't seen the test firsthand, DD10 took it for the first time last year. She breezed through the practice items as well (other than an english question or two related to organization ). However, while she did well on the EXPLORE, she did not finish 2 (or 3?) of the sections, and she was only at the ceiling in one area on the actual test vs. most areas on the practice test. In other words: the practice test items do not represent the difficulty level.

My suggestion is to print off released items from an 8th grade state test (google 8th grade released test items and you'll get plenty of options). Talk to your kids about the skip-it-and-go-on strategy, set the timer for 30 minutes and let them try it. The goal is not for them to finish it (in fact, I'd recommend printing much more than they can do in 30 minutes). You could do this for each subject area, but it's probably only necessary to do it for one. The goal is for them to experience running into problems/questions that are too difficult and determine when to skip over problems/questions to get to the ones they can actually answer. That experience should generalize regardless of subject area. Personally, I wouldn't advise trying to "teach" the material that they've missed, but it's a good opportunity to talk about the experience of making decisions under pressure and to reassure them that they aren't expected to know everything that they'll see. HTH!

Thanks so much for the helpful input and tips. It is useful to know that the actual test will be more difficult, as I think it will make a difference for them to be prepared for that. I'll look for 8th grade state test questions and have them practice with those.

My DS in 3rd Grade, will take the Explore for the first time next week. On the practice test, he got 3 wrong each on Math and Science and 1 wrong in reading and English. I'm thinking he will be ok for the testing because he was not intimidated. He did say this was more challenging than school. That in it self will make it a good experience.

Ok, I'm still a little nervous, but that's typical for me.