Every individual is blessed with certain set of qualities and virtues which can be put to use for specialized functions in their professional and academic fields of life. Testing the cognitive abilities of a person is the fundamental step to assessing the myriad facets of their aptitude and intelligence. The mental abilities of an individual are directly related to knowledge, memory, decision making, attention, problem solving, reasoning, subjective and numerical capabilities. Therefore, in order to comprehend the permutation combination of these skills that can be effectively evaluated by the ingenuous cognitive tests specifically devised to indicate your aptitude graph. These tests are symptomatic in nature and the effectivity depends on how to interpret CogAT scores.
Generally, these tests are also known as norm-referenced tests which are conducted with a group of test takers of the same age group so that it gives a comparative skill and aptitude analysis of their cognitive endowments revolving round their critical reasoning and problem solving. Thus, the prime parameters and the content of the test are hinged on assessing the verbal, quantitative, non-verbal and composite areas of the students. The test result data based on which very strategic instructional decisions are undertaken for formulating the classroom lessons can be very elusive and therefore one needs to know how to interpret CogAT scores.
First and foremost it is suggested to understand certain concepts and vernaculars which are inextricably linked with the art of how to interpret CogAt scores. For instance the concept of stanines which is represented as S in the CogAt test scorecard stands for the performance rank using a nine point scale wherein stanines ranging from 1, 2, 3 is below average, points 4,5,6 is average and stanines 7,8,9 are indicate above average results. On the other hand PR denotes percentile rank that measures the examinees performance on a scale of 100. However, the concept of percentile rank in a CogAt test is essentially different from the conventional means of percentage performance calibration. For instance, 90 percentile rank does not mean that the student has answered 90 percent of the answers right rather it indicates that the student has performed better than 90 out of the 100 examinees who attended the test.
It is estimated that the students whose composite scores are between the range of 75 and 85 percentile ranks promises to be very high achievers who need to be challenged and motivated by their academic mentors for attaining the desired results in their educational progression. Hence, it is imperative to understand how to interpret CogAt scores so that the academic instructors know the strengths and weaknesses of their students and design classroom curriculum which can bring out their best of talent and aptitude. This process therefore enables the students and their guardians to take informed decisions about the educational pursuits of their children.