CogAT Testing January 7-9

Your second grader will take a test called the Cognitive Abilities Test, Form 7 (CogAT) during the week of January 7-11, 2013. The Cognitive Abilities Test, Form 7 (CogAT) replaced the Otis Lennon School Ability Test Version 8 (OLSAT 8) which was previously given to second grade students.

The CogAT appraises the cognitive development of students and requires students to demonstrate their reasoning abilities in verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and nonverbal reasoning. 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. 

This is the second year we have given the CogAT to second grade students. The scores are used to further assist staff in more closely meeting the needs of your child. The CogAT is also one of the criteria used to determine admission into Gifted and Talented programming, including placement into the Elementary Synergy program in Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools and into SAGE Academy, a school within a school, providing fulltime gifted programming to students in grades 3, 4, and 5. SAGE Academy is currently housed at WestWood Elementary.