CogAT Test Scores: Understanding of the CogAT Score

The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is administered to students from kindergarten through to 12th grade.

It is used to evaluate the development of each student relevant to their peers and sometimes for entry onto gifted and talented programs.

The CogAT is about cognitive skills such as problem-solving and reasoning ability, rather than academic knowledge or intellectual ability.

The test is administered at school, and some students will take it on a computer while others will use a pencil and paper.

The CogAT is delivered in three batteries, each focusing on a different cognitive area, and every question is multiple choice.

The structure of the CogAT is:

• Verbal Battery: Verbal or picture analogies, sentence completion, verbal, or picture classification
• Quantitative Battery: Number analogies, number puzzles, number series
• Non-Verbal Battery: Figure matrices, paper folding, figure classification

Each student takes the test that is relevant for their chronological grade.

so, a child in 2nd grade would take the CogAT level 8, which is designed for those in 2nd grade.

Once the student has completed the assessment, the scores are calculated and presented to educators and parents.

In this guide, you will learn the meaning of CogAT test scores and how you can use that to help your child develop and grow.

The Different CogAT Scores Explained

Different CogAT Scores Explained – The Raw Score

The raw score is the simplest score – it is just the number of correct answers that your child got in each battery.

You will have the opportunity to see how many questions they were presented with, and how many they attempted to answer.

Wrong answers are not negatively marked, so an incorrect answer will not take marks away from the raw score.

Different CogAT Scores Explained – Universal Scale Score (USS)

This is a standardized score that is normed across age groups on a consistent scale, which makes monitoring a child’s progress through their educational career easier.

The raw score for each battery is translated into the USS, and then a composite score is created using the average score from all three batteries.

While the composite score is useful for judging overall performance, the scores in the individual batteries can determine whether there are any particular strengths or weaknesses in your child’s performance.

Different CogAT Scores Explained – Standard Age Score (SAS)

This score is used to determine where your child is in terms of performance based on their age and grade.

The maximum score achievable here is 160, and the average is 100 with a standard deviation of 100.

The score report will show a SAS for each battery as well as a composite score.

A student who scores 100 is on target with a standard rate of development, while a student who scores 130 would be achieving above the standard.

Different CogAT Scores Explained – Percentile Rank (PR)

The percentile rank places the performance of your child in a comparative position, based on the performance of other students of the same age and grade.

The average percentile rank is 50. If your child scored in the 80th percentile, that would mean that they have performed better than 80% of their peers.

Percentile ranks are displayed for each battery, with a composite that is the average of the three scores.

Different CogAT Scores Explained – Stanine (S)

The Stanine score uses the percentile rank, creating a scale from 1 to 9. A score of 1 is the lowest, while 9 is the highest.

The Stanine score is broad and simplified, but this is the score used by the CogAT developers to produce the score profile of each child, which is usually important when it comes to appropriate teaching techniques as well as identifying strengths and challenges.

Interpreting CogAT Scores

When it comes to making sense of the meaning of these CogAT test scores, interpretation is very important.

For your child to be exactly where they should be according to their age and grade, they should achieve an SAS of 100 and a PR of 50. This equates to an S of 5.

The report also includes a Score Profile, which will include the Stanine score followed by a letter, and then the area that your student has relative strength in, and an area that they are relatively weak in.

This will look something like:

5A (Q+V-)

As a parent, this doesn’t seem to have any relevance until you understand what each part means.

Understanding the Score Profile

The first part of the score profile is the middle stanine score taken from all three batteries.

The letter that follows describes the pattern of the score:

• A = SAS at about the same level in all three batteries
• B = The SAS of one of the batteries is above or below the other two.
• C = All three SAS differ, one above and one below.
• E = There is an extreme difference between the scores in B or C (more than 12 points in the SAS).

In the example above, the student is average across all three batteries, and the SAS points are roughly the same.

The next part of the score profile indicates that your child has a relative strength in the Quantitative Battery and a relative weakness in the Verbal Battery.

The publishers of the CogAT have provided a really useful interactive tool that allows you to input these results to get some helpful information about what they mean.

You’ll be able to see their typical areas of strengths and potential challenges, as well as how these learners learn best and strategies to support them.

CogAT Score Chart

To understand how the Stanine scores relate to the percentile ranks, refer to the CogAT Score chart below, which makes it simple.

As you can see from the CogAT score percentile chart, the Stanine (and the percentile rank groupings used to create it) form a bell curve, with the biggest percentage of scores falling in the middle.

According to the CogAT score percentile chart, only 4% of students will have a Stanine score of 1, and only 4% of students will have a Stanine of 9.

Improving CogAT Scores

Use the Scores to Guide Learning

The resources available on the CogAT website, which include the details from the report finder, can be used to help you understand the best way to support your child to perform at their best.

Practice tests and questions are a perfect way to work on this, especially if you focus on the areas of relative weakness that are highlighted by the SAS and Stanine scores on the profile.

For example, if your child scored lower in the Quantitative section, you might want to focus on learning more mathematical basics and understanding number series problems, as well as recognizing number analogies.

You can find some excellent resources for practicing the CogAT at TestPrep–Online.

Consider Other Testing ‘Problems’

Testing is nerve-wracking, and there are some strategies that you can put in place to help your child deal with the stress that it can cause.

Familiarity is really important – and this can come from using practice tests as a learning tool.

The more your child is used to taking multiple choice tests and quizzes, the less they will feel pressured when they are asked to complete a test in school.

You might also want to consider their mental and physical wellbeing in the approach to the assessment.

Make sure that they know how important it is that they try their hardest, but that it is not the end of the world, either.

Placing too much importance on assessments can have a detrimental effect on their performance.

Focus on good practice and revision habits, and make sure that they have adequate amounts of sleep, eat regular healthy and nutritious meals and that they stay hydrated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

When you receive a CogAT score report for your child, the different scores can be challenging to interpret unless you know what they mean and what each score represents.

This information helps you understand how your child is performing relative to their peers, but also in relation to their previous performance.

And this means that you can use it to help them develop and grow throughout their school careers by focusing revision and practice on the areas that they may be relatively weaker in.