CogAT for Kindergarten: Understanding the Test & Preparation Tips
Is your child about to take the CogAT test for kindergarten? Stressing about what it contains and if they should be preparing?
Don’t fret. This standard testing is simply to gauge the level of your child so that they can be best aided in their education. Read on to discover all about the test, and what you can do to make sure your child is prepared and comfortable to show their true potential.
Table of Contents
What Is the CogAT for Kindergarten?
The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) will be able to determine the cognitive development of students from kindergarten to 12th grade to see if they are prepared for the Gifted and Talented screening test. It can also help to see if your child will require academic assistance to help them learn the subjects they are struggling with the most. They will be evaluated using three test batteries: verbal, non-verbal, and quantitative.
Each of the batteries will be split into three different subtests that allow the test examiners to evaluate different aspects of a child’s cognitive development. The questions and answers on the CogAT will vary depending on the grade level of the students taking them, and the scores will vary from student to student. One way to help your kindergartener prepare for the kindergarten CogAT test is to know what type of content they will see on each part of the assessment.
What Is Included in the Assessments?
The 118 total questions on each CogAT test are designed specifically for the grade level of the students who are taking them. The CogAT test for kindergarteners is designed for students between five and six years old and does not require the answers to be filled out on a bubble sheet like the grades ahead of them would.
There is also less of a focus on the verbal abilities aspect of the CogAT test for kindergarteners since they are still in a very early learning stage for reading. Instead, they will be given questions that revolve around images that they can understand and provide their answer for. The test administrator will do the reading for the students instead.
Sometimes, the kindergarten-level CogAT tests will have different questions and content that the students may not be familiar with, but they will not be too challenging for their cognitive level of development. The students will have to use the reasoning and problem-solving skills that they have gained so far to help them with these questions. They will have a much easier time with many of the questions they have been provided if their parents have spent some time going over the test content with them beforehand.
In regards to the subtests on the kindergarten CogAT test, there will be three sections with different subsets that will evaluate your child’s cognitive abilities in many different areas. The three batteries are the quantitative battery, the verbal battery, and the nonverbal battery.
Each section has three subsets that will evaluate different aspects of cognition, and your child will score based on how good each aspect of their cognitive development is.
The quantitative battery includes number puzzles, number analogies, and number series. Meanwhile, the verbal battery includes verbal analogy, sentence completion, and verbal classification. The non-verbal battery includes figure classification, paper folding, and figure matrices.
Quantitative Battery
This section revolves around more mathematical aspects of cognitive development. Your child will be given a series of grade-appropriate number puzzles that they can solve with the information they have learned so far.
For example, they will be asked to draw their own conclusions about the correct answer to a question by carefully examining images and sentences and putting the answer to the question together like a puzzle. This section will be an evaluation of where their math skills currently lie and how well they are capable of answering number-based questions.
Verbal Battery
For this section, the student will determine how the items in the questions and answers relate to one another in order to find the correct answer in the end. As long as the sequences match up with one another, they should be able to go through this section with ease.
While there will be less emphasis placed upon the verbal part of the CogAT, each student’s cognitive abilities in this regard can still remain a point of interest. It can display how good a student is at focusing, problem-solving, and reading comprehension.
Non-Verbal Battery
The non-verbal section of the CogAT will revolve around the use of geometrical shapes and images that will help evaluate a student’s reasoning and comprehension skills. For this section, they will have to determine how the answers that are provided for each question match up in a sort of sequence.
Depending on how developed their reasoning skills are, they should have a creative method for finding the correct answers to the questions.
Sample Questions
Here are some sample questions that your child may encounter in the CogAT Kindergarten test:
- Each of the images is related to each other in certain ways. Choose the answer choice that fits into the space in the bottom row.
- On the way home from school, Steve saw an animal that said “meow” as it followed him on the sidewalk. Which animal did Steve see?
- Which of the items in the answer choices belong to the other images shown below?
- Which of these answers completes the pattern shown here?
- Which number is missing in this sequence? 1 2 3 4 [ ] 6 7 8 9
- The piece of paper shown here will be folded in this direction and have the shapes of stars cut into them on one corner. What will the piece of paper look like once it is unfolded?
- Which one of the shapes in the answer choices matches the sequences of shapes shown here?
- If one truck can carry three boxes, how many trucks are needed to carry six boxes?
Scoring
The way that the CogAT is scored is based upon your child’s age, and the highest score that any child can receive on the assessment is 160, with the average being 100. Your child’s score will be compared to other children’s scores in the same age range because of the standard age score.
There are many steps that are involved in calculating your child’s overall CogAT score. Among these steps are the Raw Score, the Universal Scale Score (USS), the Standard Age Score (SAS), the Percentile Rank (PR), and the Stanine (S).
The raw score is determined by how many answers a student has answered correctly, and it is not affected at all by the number of incorrect answers on the evaluation. The Universal Scale Score is the next step from the Raw Score. The USS will be averaged out based on the scores from each section of the CogAT assessment.
From there, the SAS will show how your child scored overall on the assessment, with the highest possible score a child can reach being 160 as previously mentioned. The Percentile Rank is the step that school districts use to compare the scores of students of the same age and grade level to each other. For example, a percentile rank of 70 will show that the student in question has scored higher than 70% of students on the same evaluation.
Finally, the Stanine stage of scoring will take your child’s score and simplify it from a score from 1 to 9, with 1 being the lowest and 9 being the highest. A score of 4-6 is considered average, a score of 2-3 is considered below average, and a score of 7-8 is considered above average. In order to increase the chance of your child earning a higher score on the CogAT test, there are a few ways to help them prepare for test day.
How to Prepare for the Test
One of the best ways to help your child prepare for the CogAT is to study and practice with them as much as possible. Set aside some time to go over some practice questions based on the content that you know will be on the test. TestPrep-Online has useful study guides that you can implement within your study schedule. Their study guides will help your child familiarize themselves with the test format and know what to expect on the actual test day.
A solid studying schedule can help put your child one step closer to success. However, remember not to put too much pressure on your child, as making them even more nervous about the assessment will only be detrimental.
Overall, ensure that your child has plenty of time to rest, relax, and get motivated for test day. The more confident they are about their abilities, the easier time they will have with the test. On the other hand, taking too much time out of each day for studying can overwhelm your child and cause them to start dreading the test.
Proceed at their pace so each study session will be easy for both of you. Help them study in a safe and stress-free environment and find different methods to help encourage them for the upcoming test. Your child deserves to go into the testing site with the confidence that they will do well with any question that they receive.
Conclusion
Preparation is key in almost every aspect of life, especially with test taking. Taking the responsible steps to help your child study will help them remain focused and ready. Regardless of how they score, remember that they are putting their absolute best forward, and they should be receiving constant encouragement so they can remain optimistic with their studies. Practicing with your child using TestPrep-Online’s study guides is invaluable as it will help your child build their confidence as they get more familiar with the test format and sample questions.
Sarah is an accomplished educator, researcher and author in the field of testing and assessment. She has worked with various educational institutions and organisations to develop innovative evaluation methods and enhance student learning. Sarah has published numerous articles and books on assessment and learning. Her passion for promoting equity and fairness in the education system fuels her commitment to sharing insights and best practices with educators and policymakers around the world.
