CogAT Sample Questions – When it comes to timed tests like the CogAT, it’s always a good idea for young students to get familiar with the type of questions they will likely face.
CogAT sample questions for young students can minimize the intimidation factor, and also alleviate any concerns as to what kinds of answers are correct.
Children who are in kindergarten or first grade may already be familiar with school tests.
For the most part, the quizzes and tests they take in class are designed to see what the child has learned. Because of this, a child can review for the test by reading their books and trying to memorize facts or math techniques.
But the CogAT is a different kind of test. It doesn’t really try to discover how much kids have already learned. Instead, it tries to measure a child’s ability to reason.
Many schools use scores to place students in enrichment and gifted programs such as GATE (Gifted and Talented Education).
Many experts discourage extensive reviews for very young children (kindergarten and first grade level). It shouldn’t be about the child’s ability to memorize answers to the CogAT sample questions.
Nonetheless, there is some value for young children to see the kind of test questions they will likely have in the CogAT.
Understanding CogAT Nonverbal Battery
CogAT Sample Questions
Helping young students prepare for CogAT
For one, it will let them see the types of questions on the test. While they should be encouraged to read the directions on the test, they will already be familiar with the instructions.
It can also lessen their anxiety about the test. By reading CogAT sample questions and knowing what type of answers are expected, a child can face the test with more confidence.
For kindergartners and first graders, the CogAT questions are read to them by the teacher, and the entire process is explained to them in a way that they will understand.
As a parent, you may want to read the questions to your child as well.
CogAT sample test questions for kindergarten and 1st grade
With an online search for CogAT prep, you will find CogAT practice workbooks, sample question, and online sample questions.
The most basic rule is that you need an age-appropriate CogAT sample test, because the CogAT test questions for older children are much more difficult and complicated.
There are many choices for CogAT prep books.
Cogat sample Test Questions for 1st grade
So take the time to consider workbooks, flashcards and anything you can do to review the CogAT sample test. The idea is to make the time relaxed and fun with your child.
Choosing CogAT practice test for kindergartners and first graders
For some people, trying to help kindergartners and first graders do well in the CogAT may seem over-the-top. This may be true, in a way. Some parents just really want their kids to excel, and preparing for the CogAT may seem excessive.
But at the same time, the CogAT may determine your child’s academic curriculum.
Many school districts use tests like CogAT to find out which kids can enter a Gifted and Talented (GT) or Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program. Students will benefits greatly from these types of educational instruction, but there may only be a few slots.
What’s more, your child may be overlooked for these programs because of low CogAT scores when your child is highly intelligent and creative.
Learn more about different ways schools use the CogAT results.
Understanding CogAT Scores Are Helpful to Parents
Should I Let My Child Take the CogAT Test
So how does a child prepare for the CogAT?
There are several ways to prepare K – 2 students. But essentially, children should be familiar with the process so that their confusion or anxiety will not affect their CogAT scores.
That’s how the CogAT test sample questions work. They expose the child to the type of questions they will encounter, so that the child can be familiar as to the kind of answer expected.
These CogAT test sample questions are not meant to be memorized.
The preparation can be fun for children, but it should also not interfere with the child’s other normal activities, such as sports, reading, or doing their homework.
By getting a good score on the CogAT, your gifted child may be able to take advantage of more creative and more in-depth teaching methods that are more fun and more effective for exceptional children.
CogAT Sample Test Questions
Cogat Practice Test Questions
Here are some appropriate CogAT test sample questions for your young child to practice. Just remember to read the questions for the child, just as they would in the real CogAT.
Verbal questions
These are the questions which emphasize a word and the relationships between words. The student will need to pick the picture or pictures which show the meaning of the word.
For example, a question may be: Which of these pictures are identical?
If your child knows the meaning of the word “identical” then they would pick the two pictures which look exactly the same among the answer options.
Another possible question is: Which picture shows a peel?
The right answer may be the one with the banana peeled halfway.
Finally, there’s the question: Which one is upside down?
And the right answer is a turtle that’s lying upside down on its shell.
The right answers here define a key word in the questions.
As you can see, it may not be possible to memorize every word that a gifted first grader may be expected to recognize.
But by encountering questions like these in their preparations, the child may have a better idea of how to answer the question.
Verbal reasoning
Some questions may be about how words are related to each other. For example, here is a sample item:
Mrs. Smith will walk to the park. It is raining. Among the pictures shown, what should Mrs. Smith bring with her to the park?
The right answer may be the umbrella if it’s shown among the choices. To answer the question correctly, the child should know what’s needed when someone is about to walk in the rain.
While the other picture options (like a bag) in real life may be helpful and can also be used to cover the head when it rains, the child should know that the umbrella here is the most appropriate answer.
Quantitative concepts
The CogAT’s Quantitative section is mainly about math. For example, the students may be shown a picture of three stars. They may be asked to count how many stars there are in that picture.
Then the test asks that they look at other pictures of stars to find the picture that has 4 more stars than the first picture.
To answer this correctly, the child should realize that “4 more stars” means adding 4 to 3 to arrive at 7 stars.
It may also be about knowing which number is greater than another.
For example, a child may be shown a number such as 156. Then other numbers will be introduced, and the child will be asked to pick the number which is greater than the first number.
Figure classification
In this part of the test, a kindergartner is asked to look at a group of figures.
The first figure may be a bunch of blue triangles of different sizes. The answer options may include another blue triangle, along with a green triangle and a blue rectangle.
With this type of CogAT sample test question, your child may understand that a group of figures may be similar in two ways instead of just one.
That’s why the correct answer is the blue triangle, instead of just another triangle or another figure that’s blue.
Here’s another example:
A square, rectangle, and a triangle are in the same picture, and each one of the figures has a shaded corner.
The most appropriate answer is the one which also has a shaded corner and not the figure with shaded area in the middle.
Even for first graders, some of the questions may be a bit complicated.
You should make your child understand that no one (including you or the teachers) expect them to get each and every item correctly.
Matrices
This may seem like a rather complicated term, but it just denotes a big square divided into 4 boxes.
Give your child the opportunity to look at the problem and to think about what he or she is supposed to do. This is part of the reasoning that the CogAT tests for.
After some time, explain to your child that there are pictures in three of the squares, while another square is empty. Point out the empty box to your child.
You can then say something like: Look at the first little square at the top row. It has a drawing of a rectangle.
Now see the next drawing in the next square at the top row? It also has a rectangle that is exactly alike as the drawing in the first square.
This is your clue. The two pictures in the top row should have the same shape.
Now on the bottom row there is a picture of a shaded circle.
To complete this puzzle, you need to find the answer that looks like the first picture of the shaded circle. Look at the drawings in the answer choices, and pick the right picture that also has the shaded circle.”
CogAT Form 7 – Sample Questions and What to Know
Tips on prepping young child for CogAT
For kindergartners, first graders, and second graders, it’s not a good idea to prep a child too extensively. However, scoring well can set them in enrichment classes if the school offers them.
You can find some sample CogAT questions online or get a workbook. The advantage of the workbook is that it will be more orderly — you won’t have to print the online materials out. This will lessen the stress of reviewing the questions.
It’s essential to make this time fun and enriching. CogAT questions are helpful to build critical thinking skills. It’s important to give your child the opportunity to figure out the problem on their own. If they need help, then work through the problem together, giving them a little bit of information at a time. It’s important for them to try to figure it out.
Helping young children with prepping for the CogAT means to take a few problems at a time in one section. Another day, work on another section. There are nine parts to the CogAT.
Keep it short
Make sure when reviewing the CogAT with kindergartners and 1st graders that you keep the review session short. Spending 15 – 20 minutes should be enough to review questions in a section. It’s important the child isn’t tired and distracted.
At this age, many children can really find it difficult to focus on a single activity for too long. They get bored easily. This same principle applies to your review session too.
Let them figure it out
Don’t be quick to answer questions when helping your child. Give them some time to work out the problem. This will give you an idea if they understand what the directions are. You will also gain insight into how your child considers the problem. This is a chance to see how your child will interpret the questions and solve them through reasoning.
Try to make it fun
One way of encouraging children to review for the CogAT is to make a game out of it. Many games, including video games, are all about problem solving, so you can do the same for your review sessions.
Be easy-going
Children are very good at assessing the mood of their parents. Remember, you’re reading the test items to your kids. You need to make your tone of voice friendly and cheerful, so that your child does not tense up.
Admittedly, some parents may feel a bit of frustration when their children fail to answer questions correctly. But you must be calm and patient.
The CogAT measures reasoning ability. This comes more naturally for some kids than others. The point of the review is not to improve your child’s reasoning ability… though you can give them test-taking strategies such as the process of elimination.
The point is to familiarize the child to what going to happen in the CogAT, so they know what types of questions to expect.
CogAT sample questions
The CogAT is an effective way to measure how your child recognizes, discovers, and uses relationships between words, numbers, and figures. It also tests for how flexible they are in their reasoning.
These abilities are not inborn. These skills can actually be developed, both in school and in your home. As a parent, you can help with that, and prepping for the CogAT is a good start.
The CogAT is also a very good way to predict the academic performance of your child. But again, reasoning ability is not the only factor that determines grades.
Their work habits can really help, and they should want to get good grades. As a parent, you can instill effective work habits that can help them all through college. You should also encourage the desire to do well.
Remember also, you don’t need a school test to be the motivation to work with your child. Involve them with questions you encounter in everyday life. You can do this while driving or preparing meals together.
CogAT practice test
CogAT or Cognitive Abilities Test is an assessment test that challenges a student’s abilities in many areas. It’s a test of one’s reasoning ability and not depth of knowledge. It happens that a very good student, who earned straight A’s on a report card, wouldn’t score in the 95 percentile or higher for the CogAT.
The reason behind this could be that reading comprehension, vocabulary, and math operations are not part of this test.
CogAT has three sections: Verbal, Nonverbal and Quantitative.
Verbal ability test
Verbal ability is always a very important part of any cognitive test. This section measures a student’s to make analogies and inferences with words. It doesn’t test reading comprehension, punctuation or grammar.
These questions are aimed to observe the vocabulary, perception of ideas and potential to pick new words while understanding their relationship in contrast to similar terminologies.
Students will need to understand broader concepts. For example, the way certain words go together. They must make connections between words. For example, Boy is to Man as Girl as to ?.
Some of the important points of this section are:
Synonym/Antonym:
Students will need to recognize words of similar meaning.
Sentence completion:
There might be some sentences that may need completion with a suitable word from given options.
Quantitative aptitude
This is the test of one’s problem solving capabilities. The Quantitative battery analyzes the problem solving qualities and judgment in quantitative reasoning. Some of the important questions in this section are:
Number series:
A series of number would be given and students would be asked to find the missing elements of the series. In order to do so, one needs to understand the relation between the numbers first.
Equation:
This section includes building equations and creating relationships between equations.
Nonverbal section
This is perhaps the most interesting and challenging section for the students. Because this is unlike most other tests, you may want to spend more time in this section when preparing young student for the CogAT.
In the nonverbal section, children see various types of puzzles such as picture analogy, relationship inference, and figure classifications. It involves the use of illustrations and geometric shapes to evaluate the cognitive powers of the students.
All You Need to Know About the CogAT Practice Test
The best way to examine and discover your child’s potential is by exposing them to the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT).
CogAT test is an evaluation test formulated for checking the merit of students who can enter gifted and talented programs.
However, it helps to prepare young students for this test. Oftentimes, schools just in K – 2nd grade but not later. This means, to qualify for a gifted program, students in younger grades need to score well.
CogAT for K – 2nd grade
For every section or part of the CogAT practice tests there is specific given time. Each section has multiple choice questions.
Importance of CogAT practice test
You can consider tutoring. It’s a resourceful option; however, most often tutors will focus on reasoning problems to build critical thinking skills, not specific CogAT-type test prep and practice testing.
Those who prep for the CogAT, no matter their age, will have several advantages over those students who don’t.
When children can know in advance the types of questions, they will know what to expect or at least be somewhat familiar with the concepts.
They will spend less time trying to understand the directions and more time on the problems.
In many schools, they test for gifted and enrichment placement in the younger grades. If this is the case for your child, it’s important for parents to learn about the CogAT. It may make sense to help your kindergartner, first grader, or second grader prepare for the test.
