FYI: How Do 7th Graders Who Take the ACT® Test Score as 11th or 12th Graders? (Report)

[Arcadia]

From my Facebook feed from Duke TIP

 

It is only two pages :)

http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/How-Do-7th-Graders-Who-Take-the-ACT-Score-as-11th-Graders.pdf

[Dmmetler]

I've found that the EXPLORE and ACT were quite consistent with DD's preschool test scores as far as national % for age. Which has been kind of reassuring after all of the "IQ before 8 isn't accurate" stuff.

[amsunshine]

Interesting.  Thanks for this!

[Gratia271]

I've found that the EXPLORE and ACT were quite consistent with DD's preschool test scores as far as national % for age. Which has been kind of reassuring after all of the "IQ before 8 isn't accurate" stuff.

 

Same experience here with my three children when comparing preschool scores with SAT, ACT, APs etc...

[Arcadia]

I've found that the EXPLORE and ACT were quite consistent with DD's preschool test scores as far as national % for age. Which has been kind of reassuring after all of the "IQ before 8 isn't accurate" stuff.

Both of my boys has percentiles that keep climbing.

My national percentiles had started climbing from 3rd grade, my hubby's national percentiles from 5th grade.

 

Both my kids wisc percentiles were also higher than their olsat taken two years before wisc.

[JeanM]

My older ds is obviously atypical. He has been unable to replicate his talent search SAT score, at least in the reading. Although that is the SAT, not the ACT.  Actually his scores have been going down in reading over the PSAT twice (10th and 11th grades) and SAT (11th). I really don't think his reading abilities are going down. As far as we can tell he is overthinking the questions.

 

He took the ACT recently and was happy enough with his score that he's decided not to re-take either the SAT or ACT.

[luuknam]

I've found that the EXPLORE and ACT were quite consistent with DD's preschool test scores as far as national % for age. Which has been kind of reassuring after all of the "IQ before 8 isn't accurate" stuff.

 

 

I wonder what the breakdown of "IQ before age 8 isn't accurate" is. My oldest has scored way better on an IQ test at age 7.0 than age 4.2 (and 7.0 isn't 8 yet, but his next triennial won't be until he's 10.0 or so). To keep the mean at 100, other score(s) have to go down, but that could be one kid scoring way worse, or a lot of kids scoring a couple of points worse.

 

I suspect it's more common to have a kid score dramatically higher as they get older than to score dramatically lower as they get older (with the exception of kids who were in accidents causing brain damage or other extreme things like that).

[TCB]

My dd gained 10 points in her score from 7th to 10th grade, which seemed to be the average gain in the article. 

 

ETA - I can see what  percentile her score is now, but not sure what percentile it was in 7th so not sure if that has stayed consistent.

Edited July 6, 2016 by tcb

[Arcadia]

I wonder what the breakdown of "IQ before age 8 isn't accurate" is.

I don't know about IQ scores because IQ testing was rare in my country during my school days except for Down Syndrome children and for children who have suffered brain damage. These "groups" have a whole battery of tests. My younger cousin has Down Syndrome.

 

What I do see in public primary (1st-6th) school during my time was lots of kids catching up as they matured (and treat school work seriously) and the hothouse kids stagnating. For example I went from a rank of 39/80 in 1st grade 13/80 in 3rd grade to top tier in 6th grade for nationwide exams to qualify for an elite secondary school. My hubby went from bottom to 3rd in standard for 5th grade to top tier in 6th for nationals to also qualify for an elite school.

 

So in terms of purely academics, hubby and I have seen schoolmates stagnate and other schoolmates leapfrog.

 

I live in an area where people do hothouse. Some kids can't "stay on top" over the years which reinforces the teachers opinion that hothousing don't work. So far we have one teacher who thinks all asians hothouse their kids and so would discredit in her mind any gifted asian child who is ahead. The rest has been very accomodating and the most accomodating were the experienced public school teachers with an open mind.

[eternalsummer]

that chart was spot on as far as my ACT talent search composite and eventual SAT score (I looked up a chart that related SAT scores to ACT scores, as I never took the ACT again).  I did no test prep in either case, so that is consistent too.

[Gratia271]

I wonder what the breakdown of "IQ before age 8 isn't accurate" is. My oldest has scored way better on an IQ test at age 7.0 than age 4.2 (and 7.0 isn't 8 yet, but his next triennial won't be until he's 10.0 or so). To keep the mean at 100, other score(s) have to go down, but that could be one kid scoring way worse, or a lot of kids scoring a couple of points worse.

 

I suspect it's more common to have a kid score dramatically higher as they get older than to score dramatically lower as they get older (with the exception of kids who were in accidents causing brain damage or other extreme things like that).

 

I agree it seems the scores would increase as they get older.  For my kids, who have always been outliers, their IQ percentile from early childhood (PG) has been reflected in their tests. I think it varies from person to person, but my children, for whatever reason, consistently ceilinged out of every standardized test, even college SAT taken in middle school. For kids who get perfect / near perfect SAT and ACT scores in middle school, it kind of stands to reason they'll achieve top / perfect scores on APs, SAT subject tests etc. in high school.  At the same time, test formats change, and there will always be some variance in top scores based on that testing day along with curving particulars. 

 

There is also a possibility that students are so far beyond the material by the time they test in high school, they may need to review some of the minutiae and details to answer the "simple" questions correctly.  For big picture, global learners, details from subjects they studied three years earlier often needs to be reviewed, or the answers to these "easy" questions can be totally overlooked and missed by the brightest students. This could possibly account for the disparity in results from middle school to high school.

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by Gratia271