Gifted Testing for Kids: How Schools Identify Students

A gifted test is rarely one test. It is a series of steps a district uses to decide which students need more advanced learning—and knowing those steps makes the process far less mysterious.

What “gifted testing” usually means

Parents often hear “the gifted test” as if there were one exam every school uses. In practice, identification is a set of steps chosen by a state or district. New Jersey’s guidance, for example, says districts “must use multiple measures” and that no single assessment result should disqualify a student. North Carolina’s program standards say that “No one criterion should exclude a child” from identification. Other states use different language, cutoffs, and program names, such as GATE, AIG, or highly capable.

So when a school says your child will be “tested for gifted,” it helps to ask which stage this is and what other information will be used. A screener in second grade, an individual test with a psychologist, and a teacher rating scale are all part of “gifted testing,” but they answer different questions.

How the identification process usually works

1. Screening

Screening decides who gets a closer look. In some districts, a parent or teacher refers a child. In others, every student in a grade takes a short test; this is called universal screening. North Carolina’s standards describe universal screeners and also recommend several screening windows during the year, so a child who is missed once has another chance.

2. Further testing

Students who pass the screener may take a fuller ability test, an achievement test, or both. Some districts also accept or give individually administered intelligence tests, such as the WISC-V, especially for students who receive special education services.

3. Review of evidence

A committee looks at test results alongside other information: grades and work samples, teacher or parent rating scales, and sometimes a portfolio. New Jersey’s guidance describes teacher rating scales as a safety net for catching students other measures miss, and warns against using them to exclude children.

4. Decision

The result might be placement in a program, services in one subject, continued monitoring, or a recommendation to re-screen later. Ask what each outcome means for your child’s daily schedule, because “identified” can look very different from one district to another.

The main kinds of measures

Ability tests and achievement tests are often confused. An ability test asks a child to reason with new material, such as finding a rule in a pattern. An achievement test asks what the child has already learned. Many districts use both because some children show advanced reasoning before their schoolwork catches up, and others show advanced achievement that a reasoning test does not capture.

How to read gifted test scores

Most score reports include a percentile rank. It compares your child with a norm group of the same age or grade. Riverside Insights, which publishes the CogAT, explains that “A PR of 50 is considered average.” A percentile rank of 95 does not mean 95 percent of questions were correct; it means the child scored as high as or higher than most children in the comparison group.

Percentiles are bunched near the top. Riverside notes that the difference between the 50th and 55th percentiles is small, while the gap between the 90th and 95th is large. That is why two children with similar abilities can land a few percentile points apart, and why a cutoff such as “95th percentile” can feel arbitrary to families just below it.

Some tests also report a standard score. On the CogAT, the Standard Age Score has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. Other tests use different scales, so a 130 on one test is not automatically equal to a 130 on another.

National norms and local norms

A national norm compares a child with students across the country. A local norm compares the child with students in the same district or school. A research team analyzing MAP Growth data from more than 3 million students found that local norms made gifted groups more representative. In their sample, Black students made up about 2% of students identified with national norms but about 8% with local norms; for Latinx students the shares were about 3% and 9% (AERA Open, 2019; summarized in a Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented presentation). The effect depends on how different schools are from each other, but it explains why some districts now use both.

Why universal screening matters

Referral-based systems depend on someone noticing a child. A study of a large Florida district found that when the district began screening all second graders with a nonverbal ability test, identification rose sharply for students from low-income families, English learners, and Black and Hispanic students. The authors concluded that these groups had been “underreferred” under the parent-and-teacher referral system (Card and Giuliano, PNAS, 2016). A separate study in rural districts that screened every second grader and used local norms identified a larger share of minority students than the districts’ usual process, as summarized by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

If your district screens everyone, your child will likely be included automatically. If it relies on referrals, ask how to request testing and whether there is a deadline.

A quick look at question types

Many reasoning tests use short visual and number puzzles. Two original examples are below so you can see the general style. For a full set organized by subtest, see our CogAT guide for parents.

Practice questions in a similar style

These questions were written by FocusPlay as original practice in a similar style. They are not real test items, they are not taken from any test publisher or prep book, and they should not be used to predict a score. Use them for short, playful familiarity with the format.

How to prepare without over-preparing

A little familiarity helps a child understand what to do. Heavy drilling, on the other hand, can create stress and can make a score less useful for finding the right level of challenge. Riverside’s own materials say that “excessive preparation or coaching will have reduced impact” on CogAT results, and its planning guide recommends that either all students in a group get the practice activities or none do.

• Explain the format. Tell your child there will be puzzles with pictures, words, or numbers, and that nobody is expected to know every answer.
• Practice listening to directions. Young children often lose points by rushing before the question is finished.
• Play reasoning games. Everyday puzzles build the same habits: noticing rules, comparing, and checking. Our guides to pattern recognition activities, spatial reasoning, and logic games have ideas, and our free printable worksheets include pattern and visual-logic pages.
• Protect sleep and breakfast. A rested child shows what they can do.
• Keep the stakes low. Say “This helps your teacher find good challenges for you,” not “This decides your future.”

Questions to ask your school

• Which tests are used at each stage, and in which grades?
• Are scores compared with national norms, local norms, or both?
• What other evidence is reviewed, and can families submit work samples?
• Is there a second screening window, a retest policy, or an appeal process?
• What services does an identified student actually receive?
• How are English learners and students with disabilities supported during testing?

Special situations

English learners. Some tests offer directions in more than one language; the CogAT, for instance, provides directions in English and Spanish at all levels. Nonverbal tests reduce the language load but do not remove every barrier, so local norms and multiple measures still matter.

Twice-exceptional (2e) learners. A child can be advanced in reasoning and also have a learning disability, ADHD, or another need. Their scores may look uneven. Ask whether the district considers individual testing or other evidence for students with an IEP or 504 plan.

If your child is not identified. It is not a verdict on your child’s potential. Ask whether there is another screening window, what evidence was missing, and how the classroom can provide challenge in the meantime.

Sources

• New Jersey Department of Education: Gifted and Talented best practices for identification
• North Carolina DPI: Unpacking the NC AIG Program Standards (2021)
• Riverside Insights: CogAT types of scores
• Riverside Insights: Introducing CogAT Form 8
• Riverside Insights: CogAT Forms 7 and 8 product planning guide
• Card & Giuliano (2016), Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education, PNAS
• Peters et al. (2019), Effect of local norms on racial and ethnic representation in gifted education, AERA Open
• Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented: Local norms presentation (2020)
• Thomas B. Fordham Institute: The benefits of multiple screenings for student giftedness

Last updated: November 6, 2026. This article is for information only and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the test publishers. Testing rules change; confirm current details with your school or district.