Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

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katel
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Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:30 pm

Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by katel »

Is it usual to have a very big disparity between the different CATS marks? My kids both had 3 scores witin a few marks of each other, but my friend's son has just scored 131 in verbal reasoning, 110 in quantitive and 103 in non verbal! I've never heard of this happening before (but that is probably because I am usually pretty uninterested in what children score for things) and I'm not sure what this means for his 11÷ chances, Any thoughts?
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by mystery »

Does this verbal non-verbal disparity show up in their school work? The verbal score is very high, the other two are mediocre. It could just be a fluke on the days of the tests. Also a lot of people on here have not found CATs that helpful in their predictions.

This link tells you more about CATs:

http://www.nationalstrategies.cpk.or.uk ... erview.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by mystery »

the above link went wrong it should say:

http://www.nationalstrategiescpd.org.uk ... erview.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
katel
Posts: 960
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:30 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by katel »

Thank you!

I would have said average or slightly above rather than mediocre........
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by mystery »

mediocre - via French from Latin mediocris moderate, literally: halfway up the mountain, from medius middle + ocris stony mountain.

I suppose it has come to have a perjorative meaning, but really I was just meaning bog-standard average!! Sorry that sounds no better. :roll:
fm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by fm »

Surely average/mediocre in these test is 100 dead, and therefore both 103 and 110 are above average/mediocre.

I have tutored several children with this disparity. Indeed my poor ones at non-verbal sometimes have very high verbal/English skills. I have always assumed, rather unscientifically, that it is down to one side of the brain being more developed. On other other side of the coin I have had a few children with fabulous non-verbal skills who can barely write a coherent sentence.

Love it or hate it, the great thing about non-verbal is that it occasionally allows a child access to grammar school who otherwise wouldn't gain such due to poorish reading skills which may be a result of their education/life experiences.

I do think, however, it is a shame when poor non-verbal keeps an otherwise fairly high functioning individual out of grammar school; after all, no one ever asks them to do a non-verbal test again.

I certainly wouldn't 'sweat it' if non-verbal was their only lowish score as it is probably the least relevant to secondary school progress.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by mystery »

I think you'd call a band of scores either side of 100 average, also there's a confidence interval on these results, so a score of 103 means that you fall somewhere between 103 + x and 103 - x with 95% confidence (that link might specify the confidence interval).

Sure this child might well be able to pass the Kent test and the CAT results might be meaningless - without further info one can't tell. But if the child is truly average at maths and NVR even after some coaching, they will not pass the Kent test ultimately. I don't feel anyone should judge this yet though.

High verbal ability certainly does help throughout school, but if you're truly average at maths and non-verbal skills there is part of the curriculum you're never going to be any great shakes at - particularly at A' level and beyond - I'm thinking here of the sciences and maths.
yoyo123
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Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by yoyo123 »

norm referenced tests usually within 2 standard deviations therefore 85 - 115 is "average" although you could refer to high average low average.. depending on what you are trying to achieve ( thinking of statement referrals etc)
katel
Posts: 960
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:30 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by katel »

I think it's baffling - he's a bright little spark, and although his literacy has always been ahead of his maths he's still at the top of the second set for maths - knocking at the door of the top set in a very big class. Don;t know what he got for the last lot of SATS - but he was, I think, a 4A at the end of year 4. He's never done any NVR before, so that could explain that - although he hasn't done any VR before either!

I just thought the huge gap was unusual and said I'd ask for help on here from all you clever people!
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 5 CATS - big disparity!

Post by mystery »

Well if he was a 4a in maths at end year 4 (and this was a secure judgement) then even at average progress he would be on course for 5A by the end of year 6. It's tough that places him in the second set only, as a 5A would be a good result. Presumably this school gets superb results at level 5.

If this was his result he shouldn't have problems with the Kent maths paper one would think, so it's just the NVR he needs to practise with if the CAT result was representative of his perfomance on the Kent NVR ........ but again there's possibly no clear correlation - Kent NVR is different from CAT NVR. Maybe he should try some age appropriate Bond NVR and see how it goes, and also check how he is doing NC level wise in maths.
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