Dear Pinebrook Families,
Your child is preparing to take their CogAT Assessment. Below is some general information regarding the CogAT assessment.
The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) measures learned reasoning and problem-solving skills in three different areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal. Reasoning skills develop gradually throughout a person’s lifetime, and at different rates for different individuals. CogAT does not measure such factors as effort, attention, motivation, and work habits, which contribute to school achievement as well.
CogAT consists of the following three batteries:
The Verbal Battery assesses students' abilities to use search, retrieval, and comparison processes that are essential for verbal reasoning.
The Quantitative Battery assesses students' abilities to reason about patterns and relations using concepts that are essential in quantitative thinking.
The Nonverbal Battery assesses students' abilities to reason with somewhat more novel questions that use spatial and figural content.
The LCPS Office of Research, Assessment, and School Improvement is not able to share information about test item content or make any recommendations regarding preparatory activities for the CogAT. Your child’s teacher will lead the class through practice activities prior to the first day of testing. Parents seeking additional information about the CogAT may access the test vendor website: (https://www.riversideinsights.com/solutions/cogat?tab=0).
In 2021-2022, student score reports for Grade 3 testers will be available at about the same time as the second quarter report cards. Questions about your child's scores may be directed to your child's gifted resource teacher Erin Wilhelm, or to the Gifted Office.
Understanding Your Student’s CogAT Test Results
Ability Profile: A CogAT ability profile captures both the pattern and the level of a student’s scores on the three CogAT batteries. Parents are encouraged to reference the CogAT Interactive Ability Profile Interpretation System for additional information.
Raw Score: Raw scores include the total number of questions on the test, the number of questions that were attempted, and the number of questions answered correctly.
Percentile Rank (PR): A percentile rank of 80 means that student’s score was higher than 80% of all students in the same norm group who took the same test. The average percentile rank is 50.
Stanine (S): A stanine is a broader way to group student performance from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest possible).
The figure below illustrates the relationship between percentile rank and stanine:
Age Norms compare a student’s performance on the test with that of other students of the same age group. For CogAT, students are grouped by age in one-month intervals.
Grade norms compare a student’s performance on the test with that of other students in the same grade group (fall, midyear, or spring, depending on when the test is taken).
LCPS reports Age Percentile Rank, Age Stanine, Grade Percentile Rank, Grade Stanine, Raw Score, and Ability Profile.
Your child will be participating in their CogAT assessment across a 3 day period. Pinebrook will administer the assessment on the following days.
Getting Started and Verbal Battery: Tuesday, February 8th @ 9:30am
Quantitative Battery: Wednesday, February 9th @ 9:30am
Nonverbal Battery: Thursday, February 10th @ 9:30am
On their days of testing, please help your child prepare in the following ways.
Eat a healthy breakfast or get breakfast at school
Arrive to school on time
Bring their Chromebook, fully charged
Bring their charger
Bring a pair of headphones
Please email Pinebrook’s school testing coordinator, Leigh Boyd at leigh.boyd@lcps.org with any questions or concerns.
Respectfully,
The Pinebrook Administrative Team
