CAT tests

[Worrier1]

Can anyone advise re cat test results? Just had my daughters year 6 results. Compared to last year, she has 7 marks less in quantitative, and 4 marks less in verbal reasoning. Non verbal has improved by 8 marks. No idea what this all means, just concerned as should I be worried??!!

[LIZS]

no there is a tolerance level so I'm sure it is just down to question on the day . Personally don't have much confidence in them!

[Lonecatwithkitten]

They are aptitude tests not ability, the school should be able to help you.

[standwellback]

I can understand why you might be worried, especially when most of them have headed south rather than north but as LIZS says all these tests have a tolerance or reliability range, so no-one can say with any certainty where your DD sits, but it will be somewhere within a range around those marks on those tests. The school should be able to tell you what that reliability range is.

I think the best thing is not to try and look at these particular results in isolation (easier said than done, I know) but if she has been tested 3 or more times than you can start to get a pattern or better feel.

All sorts of things can affect performance: tiredness, distractions, nerves and it is well known that relative lack of intellectual stimulation, after a long summer break for example, 'could' affect results.

[piratecat]

were kids tested in primary yr 6 for cats then? sure mine wasn't.

[standwellback]

Well, even though I answered on this thread - I am now in the same situation!

DD's most recent CATs results are now showing a 13 point decline in NVR, (over a 2 year period) although VR is up by around 7 and is now at test ceiling. There is now a spread of around 30 points between the highest and lowest mark!

Has anyone got any ideas about declining NVR? The quantitative is about 7 points higher than NVR and remaining stable.

Does NVR ever show big improvements, on its own, without lots of practise tests? I do not really want to improve the score for its own sake, but an improvement in problem solving on new material would be good. I also know that selective schools will take a lot of notice of this score!

[TeenAndTween]

I may be wrong here, but I thought tests like CATs were normalised for an age?

So scores going down don't mean the child has got absolutely worse, it means they have got relatively worse compared with peers (ie haven't improved quite as much as their peers have).

We are always being told that children plateau and improve at different times. So say your child was at 110 in y6 (slightly above average for that age group) but is now at 103 in y7 they have still improved as the expectations have risen, but just not as much?

I would have thought that +-10 marks is probably within normal range of day-to-day variation anyway, and therefore not significant.

[standwellback]

Yes, you are right they are normalised for age. But my understanding is that say children are expected to move 5 points per year and they make that advancement then the score stays the same and they stay the same relative to peers. However DD has not moved or advanced relative to age and has infact moved from the 9th (or possibly 8th) to the 6th stanine! I think therefore there is an actual decline relative to peers and a huge drop.

I think they say that a 10 point drop or increase is not significant but more than that would be.

Has anyone else seen plateauing and improving? I thought cognitive ability is meant to be fairly stable from 7 or so onwards.

[talkingnonsense]

A gap of that size (30pts) would suggest a problem- all scores should really be within 10-15 marks of each other. But she could have just had a bad day, or made the same mistake throughout- you would ideally repeat to get a pattern.

[standwellback]

Yes, thank you talking nonsense, I had been told that too in the past. However the teacher looked at me as if I was bonkers when I said they were too far apart, she just said that it indicated a strong preference for a certain type of reasoning and that it was common to be much stronger in one area than another.

[MadameDefarge]

In our borough children are banded by CATfor secondary so all the kids do them in year six.