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WISC V


zenjenn
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Has anyone heard of the WISC V being administered with no block designs, no sequencing, no arithmetic, and no memory/recall exercises?

 

My 10 year old was just administered this test and came out upset.. she said she felt she did terribly, and cited almost all questions that she got wrong that were knowledge-based. (For example, Beethoven is to music  as Monet is to... but she didn't know who Monet is (or even that it was a who) so she couldn't answer.) She said there were references to historical figures and idioms she was unfamiliar with.

 

I tried to cheer her up by asking how she did on sections involving block designs, picture/number/letter sequences, or mental arithmetic (I had read these were on the test, and these sections would have been her strengths.) And she claims she wasn't asked a single question that fit the description. She did describe *some* of the things I'd expect, like observing inconsistencies in pictures, 'which doesn't belong' type questions, and so on.

 

She took this test from the public school district as part of screening her to possibly enter a middle school gifted magnet program next year (she's currently homeschooled.) The examiner came out and said the test will take 30-35 minutes (it ended up taking closer to 45). By sheer coincidence my other child will be taking the WISC V privately next week as part of screening for a learning disability and they told me to allocate *2 HOURS* for her.

 

I'm really flummoxed by the 10-year-old's WISC experience. I have an inquiry into the gifted specialist but I'm curious as to anyone else's experiences that might shed some light on it? I know there are different subtests on the WISC V, but why would knowledge-based questions be included and why would the sections relating to spacial reasoning, memory, sequencing, etc, be omitted as part of gifted screening for a new student matriculating into the system? Thoughts?

 

Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter, I am just finding it very curious that two different people are giving my two kids something they call "The WISC V" but it appears to be very different things. (The two children are only 2 1/2 years apart in age.)

Edited by zenjenn
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I would edit out the exact test questions from

your post. It is not looked on kindly to leak any info that is on the IQ tests.

 

I have heard that gfired programs sometimes just run certain subtests and not the full thing in order to save time and to narrow it down to the "type" of gifted kid they are screening for. I think gifted programs tend to cater more toward verbal giftedness more than Visual spatial--which may be why they didn't bother with those subtests? And yes, information is part of the VCI and part of what they call crystallized knowledge and it is heavily "g" loaded.

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Are you sure it was the WISC? School boards in our area sometimes use pre-screening tests (ie. not the WISC) to save money, and then the results from those are used to decide which children will actually get the WISC (ie. very very few). While it is a shortened version of the WISC that one would get privately, wouldn't it take longer than 30 minutes? Knowledge based questions that have a cultural basis don't sound right... I don't remember hearing anything like that from either of my kids.

 

There are parts of the WISC that don't correspond with giftedness. This test was not originally designed for this purpose, so some subtests are dropped when final calculations are made to determine giftedness. (Many boards use the GAI calculation, which doesn't use all subtests, such as processing speed.)

 

If it wasn't the WISC, (and I would double check that one) then is there a possibility that you could get her privately tested and use those results? 

 

We went with private testing after meeting the school psychological associate and realizing there was no way she was spending time alone with our kids. She misrepresented herself as a psychologist, had a very strong accent that my kids wouldn't understand, and ask us very inappropriate questions about motives for testing. 

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Thank you. Yes, I found out it wasn't the WISC. The district gifted specialist told me she'd be getting the WISC V administered at our locally-zoned school, but it turned out it was something else. The school gifted specialist wasn't even sure what test it was, other than that it wasn't the WISC V. A pscychometrist sent by the district administered it.

 

Weird. Whatever it was, I highly doubt it was any kind of IQ test, and my questions were just similar examples, anyways, not exactly what my daughter said nor could she precisely remember. What my child is describing doesn't sound like any IQ test I've ever heard anyways. It was very short and she described only a few things that sounded IQ test like.

 

I have an inquiry in as to why she was given a different test and whether it's really usable for identifying giftedness. Again, it may not even end up mattering. Just found it strange. It could be as simple as them wanting to save money as the test scores I gave them should be more than ample evidence, but they need to check a box that she is identified as gifted by the district I think. Hmm.

Edited by zenjenn
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Your post brought back a random memory-- I took a test to skip third grade and the questions were similar to what you're describing. I thought the test was a breeze, and then I got to one that referenced the Wright Brothers; I had to answer, "I don't know." I can't believe I still remember the reference, and the feeling of complete failure...

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