Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment EXPLORE Prep?

when taking the SCAT another above grade level test I failed to tell him it would be hard. He came out of the math portion CRYING since he did not know everything. I felt so bad.
I wish I would have prepared him by telling him that it would be a hard test and that he was not expected to know everything.
He did do well enough to make it into CTY though but got a lot wrong.

Dd12 had that same response when she took the EXPLORE @ age 9 (4th grade). The school wanted above level scores as part of an IAS although they approved the skip prior to the scores coming in. Reading is normally one of her strongest areas but she didn't come close to finishing it b/c she left the room three times to go to the bathroom and cry during that section since she was far enough into the test by that point to realize that it was hard and she didn't know it all.

For kids used to knowing it all taking a hard test where they are not expected to know it all is not easy to explain.
And I felt like looked like the crazy parent forcing my kid to take this test when he came out hysterical. I did not expect that. So now for TIP I am not sure I will have him take the EXPLORE test. There is no reason to have him take it so I think we will skip it for now.

Has anyone heard anything back from their talent search re the survey? WATS/CBK hasn't yet responded to my e-mail.

Would it be the talent search or ACT?

edited.

I contacted our talent search. Has anyone contacted ACT directly to inquire? I still haven't gotten a reply e-mail from CBK (the talent search).

Hi. My DS10 took the test this spring. I'm also a little weirded out by the questions. I called ACT this morning and they referred me to the talent search (Duke TIP).

I called Duke and they told me that all the talent searches used this survey to "better know the kids they're serving". He is supposed to send me an email with the exact questions that were asked.

I called ACT this morning as well and was told basically the same thing -- the questionnaire must have come from the talent search not from ACT. CBK isn't answering their phone at all and hasn't responded to my e-mail. I'm a little irritated to put it lightly. IMHO if we didn't consent to this, they have no right to be conducting experiments on our kids. These aren't "how old are you, where do you attend school," types of questions that could be interpretted as a means of getting to know the kids better. It sounds like a means of getting to know the kids' psychology better and seeing how that correlates with their test performance. That would constitute a human subjects experiment which requires IRB approval and signed consent forms from parents.

Tips on Informed Consent

http://www.socialpsychology.org/consent.htm