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

My DS8 is taking the Explore test tomorrow. I only did one practice test with him and we talked about skipping items that were harder. I didn't want him to be too stressed since it is his first time taking a test like this. Does anyone have any other advice? Maybe I didn't prepare him well enough.:/ Should I have been teaching him the advanced concepts on there?

My understanding is that the talent search agencies don't recommend studying beyond becoming familiar with the format of the test. We didn't do anything to prep dd#1 when she took it in 4th grade other than doing the practice questions they sent. She's taking the SAT this year and hasn't so much as looked at the practice booklet b/c she has totally overscheduled herself with extracurricular activities and is rarely home and awake to look over practice exams.

My biggest advice would be to tell him that is is probably going to be harder than the practice questions and that he shouldn't expect to know all or even most of the questions. Dd was so thrown by it being harder than she expected that she kept leaving the room to go to the bathroom and cry. She didn't complete the reading section at all, which is usually her strongest area, and she came out in tears at the end. She did much better than I had expected based upon how stressed she was, but less anxiety would have been a good thing.

My oldest is doing much better with stress in relation to hard tests now a days and I do think that it was a good learning experience, though.

My DD9 is taking the explore tommorrow too. I gave him the practice test. He was relaxed about it. He said it was more challenging than school. This will be a good experience. We did nothing more to prepare and from what I've heard this is the way to do this.

Thanks for the reassurances.:) My plan really was to just have him do this so he would get comfortable with this format of testing. I just started worrying.;)

Did anyone's DC take the Explore test today?

Today was DS9's first experience. He was all set for the test no problems until last night he started crying and said he didn't want to go. "It would be boring." I told him we paid for this and I was sorry he didn't want to go but it he must. He was just fine at the testing but acted a bit sad about it and didn't want to be there. I talked to a Mom who said her daughter did the same exact thing last 3 yrs ago but then wanted to take it the following year.

He finished all the tests except the science and that was the hardest for him. He was not overwhelmed by the test at all. I am very proud of him. It was wonderful for me to have two hours to sit and read a book.

DS8 took it today. It was his first ever standardized test that wasn't given by me, I think.

The bad news: he finished less than half of the items on the test to hear him tell it, though he did allow time to guess at the end of each section, so at least there are (hopefully!) no blanks. But I don't hold out much hope for a fab score.

On the bright side, he said, "Every one I answered, I know I got right." It was a good experience and he enjoyed it. So that's all good.

If only he were faster... *Sigh*

<Strapping in to prepare for the haul>

Hi Kriston,

My DS8 took it today as well. He said math was hardest & only finished 20 of the 30, then guessed. I think he liked the experience, but two girls were whining that they did not like taking the test and thought it was a waste of their time. I was sad to hear that and told my guy that that was silly because it was an opportunity for them that they failed to appreciate. Don't worry about speed--if he takes it again next year or even the following year, both of you will see a big improvement in speed.

Dd#1 took the SAT today. Unfortunately there was a snafu at the uni where the doors to the testing rooms weren't left unlocked, so they started almost an hour late. I wound up having to leave dd there in the care of the test proctors for the last 20 mins of the wait to get in b/c I got called into work at the hospital for a really short shift that I thought would start after she was in the test. I was done & back well before she got out at least since they didn't finish up until nearly 2pm. The SAT is a lot longer than the Explore!

I, too, am not expecting her to have done fabulously, but she didn't think that it was horrible. Her only big disappointment was that she was a few words short of finishing her concluding sentence on her essay when time was called for that section, so she doesn't know if the readers will understand the last incomplete sentence.

Does anyone remember how long it takes to get the scores back on these tests?

My dd took the Explore yesterday. She felt pretty confident when she came out. She said most of it was easy except math. She guessed at 2 or 3 and never got to answer 3.

Does it really take 6 weeks to get the results?

Yeah, ours was pretty packed with hs kids and talent search kids b/c they were running the Explore, SAT reasoning, and SAT subject tests that day. A lot of people were put out with a long wait and a longer day than they had planned.