Cognitive Abilities Test (or CogAT®) is a reasoning test

posted by Karen Quinn, The Testing Mom - July 18th, 2012

The Cognitive Abilities Test (or CogAT®) is a reasoning test given to students of all ages. There are levels of the test designed for kindergarteners all the way through high school seniors.

While reasoning is the main skill tested by the CogAT®, it has other applications as well. Namely, it can help predict future achievement test scores when used in conjunction with the Iowa tests. CogAT® results will be very important for your child’s future, as they will play a part in determining whether or not they are accepted into a private school or gifted program, and partially predict how well they will do in school. The CogAT® test is split into three different types of questions. These sections are verbal, quantitative and nonverbal. The difficulty of these questions depends on the age of your child and the level test they are taking, but will generally be challenging to all students.

Timing is also a factor. The kindergarten level allows only 30 minutes per session, first and second graders get 50 minutes per session, and all levels other than those get an hour. It is important to understand how your child does with timed tests because these levels are all timed differently, and you must therefore prepare accordingly. You can read more about the CogAT® and TestingMom.com on Wikipedia