How can your child prepare better with Gifted?
Children start developing reasoning and problem-solving abilities from an early age. It is important to note that these abilities are not innate, and your child’s in-school and out-of-school experiences influence these abilities.
The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is commonly used in several countries to evaluate the student’s cognitive development levels. Many school systems use CogAT performance to evaluate if a student qualifies for advanced learning offered by Gifted and Talented programs.
Test-taking is an acquired skill and purposeful practice is one of the best ways to master it. But even if you don’t believe in the whole ‘Gifted and Talented Program’ concept, it is worth a try. You can use this test to know your child’s abilities in the areas of verbal, non-verbal, and quantitative reasoning to further build them.
Practicing for the CogAT not only helps you evaluate your child’s cognitive abilities; but it can also help them to develop their problem-solving skills.
CogAT Structure and what makes Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades unique
The CogAT consists of three batteries – verbal, non-verbal, and quantitative. Each of these batteries has three different types of questions that will test your cognitive skills.
Verbal
- Picture Analogies
- Sentence Completion
- Picture Classification
Non-Verbal
- Figure Matrices
- Paper Folding
- Figure Classification
Quantitative
- Number Analogies
- Number Puzzles
- Number Series
There are 14 different levels of the CogAT test which vary in terms of difficulty, question types, and number of questions. For Kindergarten, the CogAT Test level is either 5 or 6, for Grades 1 and 2, it is 7 and 8 while for Grades 3, 4, and 5, the level is 10, 11, and 12 respectively. The time limit for kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 is 112 minutes which is more than other grades. Starting from grade 3, the time limit reduces to 90 minutes. Another thing that makes the CogAT test pattern unique for lower grades is that till Grade-2, only picture-based questions are asked to test the reasoning and critical thinking skills in this test.
How to help your child prepare for CogAT
9 out of 10 Parents will not admit even if they are helping their child with CogAT preparation. They want everyone to think that their kids are naturally “Gifted”.
Contrary to what most parents think, CogAT is a test to gauge the reasoning ability of a child, not to measure how intelligent he/she is. The best way to help your child prepare for CogAT is by exposing him/her to the exam format and the types of questions he/she is going to see on the test day. Online platforms provide approx. 400-500 questions for the Kindergarten to 5th grade. Even most of the books that cost around $20, will only have around 150 Questions dedicated for this age group. There is definitely a lack of study material for CogAT prep. We realized this gap and developed a Gifted App to help thousands of such parents who wanted their kids to score better on the CogAT test.
Largest online collection of 5,500+ CogAT practice questions
Yes, you read it right. Unlike other online and offline mediums which altogether provide 500 questions (at max.), Gifted provides access to more than 5500 questions that are specifically dedicated to CogAT preparation for Kindergarten to Grade-5. These cover all the 9-question types from verbal, non-verbal, and quantitative batteries.
By practicing CogAT questions, your child will acquire crystallized knowledge, make comparisons, recall experiences, and determine relevant action.
PrepDNA to discover and improve weaker concepts
Practicing alone will not help. You must also continuously churn to find where your child is lagging. Our breakthrough analytics platform, PrepDNA, pinpoints your child’s weaknesses and strengths in comparison to other kids of the same age range preparing on the Gifted platform. It has all the information about your child’s level of preparation and how much work is needed to achieve the desired score. You can dive right into practicing the weakest topic just by clicking on that topic on your PrepDNA chart. This constant feedback helps to prepare in a focused manner.
Regular revision platform to improve on previous mistakes
Once you are aware of the mistakes and weak links, it’s time to eradicate them.
Revising and correcting previous mistakes helps children to retain the concepts for a longer period. Gifted has a dedicated revision section that focuses on previous mistakes.
This section uses our AI(Artificial Intelligence) engine to find questions that will improve your score the most. It prioritizes the mistakes that were made in the past, looks for patterns within the incorrect questions, and discovers concepts that need to be improved.
You can make this revision a fun time with your child, by offering lots of encouragement.
Build your child’s test-taking muscle with unlimited tests
The easiest, smartest, and best thing to do is to see how your child responds to the actual CogAT Test. Knowing the right answer is not enough to excel in CogAT. You need to answer it in the given time frame. Our daily tests simulate the test pattern and unlimited customized tests give you multiple shots at building your child’s test-taking muscle.
It is important to find out how CogAT scores are going to impact your child’s opportunities at school. Apart from gaining acceptance in the ‘Gifted and Talented Program’, a good CogAT score may mean that your child will be placed in a more advanced math or language arts class.
CogAT measures cognitive skills but schools do not teach them. Your child may excel at spatial reasoning and critical thinking skills but that won’t show up on a school report card. However, it will reflect in the results of a CogAT test.
With Gifted App, you can help your children show how smart they are and guide their way to be a part of a gifted and talented program.