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Hi everyone. Sheryl Emmett here. I am a new member and am reading through your EXPLORE test questions and responses. Just wondering if anyone had a thought about why I might have my child take EXPLORE when he already has a few (national) standardized tests under his belt? I had been reading through the DUKE talent search for 4th and 5th gaders, and they expect the kids to take this test (as you may or may not know). test overload / redundancy is a concern here. My 8 year old has recently taken the WISC-IV with a 141 (GAI 155) and the WIAT. Can this test actually tell me more (or go further in depth) about his abilities than a WAIT and WISC-IV? Thanks for your
thoughts.....

Hi,

My understanding is that the WISC measures intelligence, which may or may not be correlated to academic knowledge. Achievement test results are more dependent on the child�s educational opportunities and independent initiative to learn, barring any LD issues. A group standardized test such as EXPLORE is often better understood and trusted by educators than independent achievement testing. Many HG and PG students, especially those in �average� educational settings, find enough ceiling on a test designed for older students, if only in one or two subtests.

Thanks for the alacrity with which you all responded! And thank you for the warm welcome. My son is home-schooled now after a few years trying out public and private schools here in the central Florida area. As you can imagine, I am constantly in flux over what I have chosen to teach - and if it's what he needs more or less of in depth. His academic development ranges from 5th grade to college level. Obviously these results won't translate to an educational plan as if he is in school, still, they will help guide me along the way and that will make all the difference in the quality of his education. Knowing what he can actually do (and which areas I/we need to work on more) is certainly helpful information. Thanks again!

You may be able to get some of this information without going through the formal testing process. When we were deciding if it would be worthwhile to have DS take the ACT, we bought "the Real ACT" for a pretty low price. It has 3 full ACT tests. Just from having him take one of those I have gotten a good sense of where his skills are at and where some of his gaps are.

If you have him do it on his own for your own purposes, you can have him take each section separately without any of the timing issues and test pressure. He may be a little young to take the ACT, but with his WISC where it is, I would think he would probably have scores that would register on the ACT.

I'm home schooling, too, and I've been doing achievement testing like mad to try to gauge where my DS is right now. It's our first year of HSing, and I'm nervous about gaps in his education.

But if you don't need scores for some specific purpose and you just want a general idea of what your child knows and doesn't know (or can and can't do), then there are many free tests available online. It seems like the higher the grade level at which the child is operating, the more likely it is that you'll have to pay something. But if you don't need *THE* current SAT (or whatever test), but only *AN* SAT from some year, then you can generally save money by checking online and in bookstores.

IQ and achievement tests can be expensive. I'd recommend that unless you really MUST have a formal test administered, you can probably save your money and find a freebie/cheapie.

Kriston,
do you have any links, I'd like to check that out!

Incog

I'll give you what I got, but there's tons more out there!

Here's the one I liked best. (Though be advised that I know nothing about the representative from TX who's providing the site. I don't know anything about his politics and I'm not endorsing him in any way.) These are honest-to-goodness achievement tests with bubbles to fill in and everything. (Answer keys provided.) The site has tests for grade levels up to 11th grade, though not in all subjects:

http://scotthochberg.com/taas.html

Singapore Math has free placement tests, though sometimes the way they present stuff is a bit quirky, so it might require a bit more hands-on administering than with other tests:

http://www.singaporemath.com/Placement_Test_s/86.htm

There's a bunch of reading links on this site:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/060899.htm

And here are their math links:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/mathAssessment.htm

(BTW, I noticed that Saxon Math has a link to their placement test on this page.)

I found this stuff by just searching "free reading test." I came up with lots of stuff, some good, some utterly crummy. But it was free! I got what I needed from it. I'm sure you could do the same thing with other subjects or even with stuff like the SAT.

I hope this helps! Happy assessing!

Thanks, those look great. I found this one, I have just started digging through it. It gives online economics lessons from k-12 and looks pretty promising. Looks to be free as far as I can tell:

http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/K-12/home.cfm

Excellent! I didn't have any curriculum on economics...and now I do! DS6 and I talk about it in general terms when it comes up in conversation, but I haven't used any formal teaching materials.

Thanks!

I called Explore people today.

Told them we have received the admission ticket in December but no other "official info" about the test .
"We will be sending those out at the end of the month"
"But the test is this month"
"Yes, she will get it before the test"
"So again, when are you going to send it out?"
"In a few weeks"
"But the test is January 26!"
"Yes, I know"

Well, sometimes rationality of ot all eludes me :-)