Year 7 CAT scores

[TMLA]

Just got my son’s year 7 CAT score back. Could someone please explain what percentile would this put him and how we could improve on the verbal which seems a lot lower than the others? Thanks very much!

Verbal - 124
Quantitative - 141
Non-Verbal - 138
Spatial - 139

The verbal score might be a lot lower than the others but is still well above average (100).

Did the school not give you any explanatory notes along with the results? A score around 140 is very very high indeed.

This document has a centiles graph on page 2,

support.gl-education.com/media/1785/gl2730-cat4-guide-for-admissions-teams-2020.pdf

Your son's scores for Quantative, Non-verbal and Spatial are in the top 2%. Verbal is in the top 14% of results.

Thanks very much AssassinatedBeauty! No we had to email the teacher to find out about the scores and there are no explanatory notes.
Thanks for the link as well!

re: improving on verbal - it's hard to know. really the best thing would be to see him have a go at some practice questions & see if he's systematically getting a certain type of question wrong. "verbal reasoning" is quite a broad category. things that can let a candidate down include gaps in their spelling, vocabulary, problem solving ability, test technique, etc - different types of "verbal" question test subtly different competencies. with a relatively good score like 124 it's likely that there's at most one really noticeable weakness, or maybe 2-3 barely noticeable ones.

You don't need to "improve" on CAT tests. It's a snapshot of your child's likely capacity to achieve later on. His verbal score is in the top 14% of children, pretty much on the 95th centile. It's more than a "relatively good" score! It tells you that he is exceptional at Quantative, Non-Verbal and Spatial reasoning, and well above average for Verbal reasoning.

I've noticed with these sorts of threads (more often about sats scores) that it's never the parents whose children have low scores who ask for clarification.

Amazing scores! Did you not have an inkling that he was doing well at school?

Thanks very much everyone!
Hi Larkspurlane, he is doing great only when he concentrates, other times he would rush and be easily distracted and careless with his work. 🤣

@TMLA

Thanks very much everyone! Hi Larkspurlane, he is doing great only when he concentrates, other times he would rush and be easily distracted and careless with his work. 🤣

I hear ya, I have a DS like that, although not quite with the CAT scores to match yours.

@choosername1234

I've noticed with these sorts of threads (more often about sats scores) that it's never the parents whose children have low scores who ask for clarification.

Exactly what I came on to say. Funny how it's the parents of high scoring kids that seem unable to use Google.

This is my first post here and I Just want to thank assassinatedBeauty, puffyisgood again for taking your time to reply to me, your help is really appreciated! We will work on his vocabulary and problem solving. Also thanks again larkspurlane.

I don’t know why there are unfriendly people here, we are all mums trying to help our children. I did Google a lot but there were many contradicting information.

OP. Just did a quick search. You may find the first result I came across helpful kidadl.com/articles/cat-test-year-7-everything-a-parent-should-know

No worries. I think some people are wary because sometimes there are deliberately provocative posters who start off with similar posts and the whole thing is just a goady exercise. Personally, I just report posts I'm suspicious of and let MNHQ decide. If I post, I will assume good intentions until proven otherwise!

Back to CAT stuff...
If you are going through school with your first/only child and haven't got any recent experience of schools yourself then these things won't be anything you've come across before. If you get a chance, it might be worth feeding back to the school the lack of information about the CAT tests and what the results mean, for parents who don't have experience of the current school system.

You have a bright child OP who is very secure in his learning. Normally teachers would explain the scores with you at parent teacher sessions, however having some first hand knowledge of their meaning helps shape the conversation, which is probably where you are coming from.

Of significance is the purpose of the CAT scores at primary (going up to 13+) or secondary school.
Is your son transitioning schools soon? Or recently moved in to college?

Your DS appears naturally very capable and would thrive in most top academic schools with those scores, being a UK wide cohort assessment not just his own year group.

Verbal reasoning is slightly weaker, but not demonstrably out of kilter, and everyone has a natural tendency for maths/science over English. Year 7 -9 can become more fluid years for results with a change of learning environment and growth/ maturity.

Thanks both. I’m going to email school to explain a bit more about his results but they usually takes a long time to reply🤣so I asked on here first.

He is currently in year 7 in a prep school.

@TMLA, as others have said, his VR score is actually already well above average (in the top 6% or so for his age group, to put it in perspective.) His other three are exceptional - in the top 1% of all scores. Unless he is doing formal entrance tests which include VR for senior schools, I wouldn’t do any work directly on VR. Encouraging him to read challenging books, possibly with you, and discussing and analysing them would be more helpful if you do want to do anything, and would give him useful skills as he moves towards GCSEs.

Interested in this thread as I have a DS who got similar year 7 CAT scores (higher verbal score and NVR was 141, but lower quant), but his school work has been pretty average, albeit at a grammar school. Especially for English, he is very average, maths is better, higher ability set. Perhaps he is under achieving, not very motivated to study, careless with his work, won't write anymore than he absolutely has to...hopefully this will change as he gets older, fingers crossed.sounds like your DS OP!

@AssassinatedBeauty

This document has a centiles graph on page 2,

support.gl-education.com/media/1785/gl2730-cat4-guide-for-admissions-teams-2020.pdf

Your son's scores for Quantative, Non-verbal and Spatial are in the top 2%. Verbal is in the top 14% of results.

@TMLA @AssassinatedBeauty

That's not exactly the right interpretation of that graph. Everything above 115 is in the 84th percentile (top 16%)

A score of 124 is circa 95th percentile (top 5%)

A score at or above 135 is 99th percentile or higher (1%)

Oh, is it usual for schools to give out the year 7 CAT scores? I only know my child did them as she told me. We were never told the result.