Sam Coulter, Author at 91ÁÔÆæ /blog/author/samcoulter/ Prep for Success Tue, 03 May 2022 19:20:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://assets.testinnovators.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/favicon-85x85.png Sam Coulter, Author at 91ÁÔÆæ /blog/author/samcoulter/ 32 32 Data Analysis: How our test takers performed by state /blog/data-analysis-how-our-test-takers-performed-by-state/ Fri, 28 Aug 2015 14:09:00 +0000 /?p=4376 Over the summer, we've been poring over the tens of thousands of data points we attained from our ISEE practice test system this year. We were interested to see how students performed by question type, especially when it came to geographic location

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Over the summer, we’ve been poring over the tens of thousands of data points we attained from our ISEE practice test system this year. We were interested to see how students performed by question type, especially when it came to geographic location. We found that five states were the top performers on all sections of the ISEE, but there were slight variations in their relative strengths. Here is a map of the top five states–New York, Massachusetts, California, Texas, and Washington–by ISEE section:

Interestingly, we found that for certain question types, some states performed better than others. Let’s take a look at the math subjects that each state found the easiest relative to others.

California ISEE Math Performance

California outperformed other states when it came to multiplying binomial equations (26.32% above average), finding the area of a rectangle (17.13% above average)—we’re not sure why Wyoming and Colorado weren’t best at this one—and determining the perimeter of an equilateral triangle (4.12% above average). Overall, California was a very geometrically adept state.

Massachusetts ISEE Math Performance

Massachusetts’ most dominant subjects were data collection and random sampling (15.39% above average), predicting the next shapes in a pattern (19.32% above average), and determining the rule from a pattern of numbers (9.89% above average). Do you see a pattern?

New York ISEE Math Performance

Students from New York were superior on questions involving multiplying integers (19.05% above average), simplifying expressions (14.60% above average), and solving equations (11.21% above average). Algebra and arithmetic were the strong points here.

Texas ISEE Math Performance

The Lone Star State’s test takers enjoyed great success on questions with time-and-distance-based graphs (15.54% above average), solving equations using substitution (9.39% above average), and finding the angles of quadrilaterals using addition (11.57% above average).

Washington ISEE Math Performance

Washington not only leads the nation in apple production; it also produces students who were especially good at story problems with graphs (35.71% above average), finding least common multiples (20.90% above average), and finding the nth term in a sequence (23.82% above average).

Conclusions

If the level of competition has anything to do with performance on these tests, then we aren’t surprised to see New York leading the pack in many of our measures. Many students in Manhattan start taking competitive admissions tests at a young age and are often very accustomed to rigorous exams like the ISEE. We were interested to see that each of our top five states had relative strong points. It’s possible that slight curriculum differences, in addition to the level of competition, could contribute to these discrepancies. We performed a similar analysis for our SSAT practice tests. You can read about our findings . And stay tuned for more ISEE practice test analysis!

Get started with your test prep today!

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]]> Where do top-performing SSAT practice test takers come from? /blog/where-do-top-performing-ssat-practice-test-takers-come-from/ Wed, 19 Aug 2015 13:58:00 +0000 /?p=4126 The SSAT has three sections: Verbal, Reading, and Quantitative. When we looked at our practice test data from this past year, we noticed that five states—Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Florida, and Washington—attained the highest scores on these sections, but there were variations between each state's particular strengths.

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This is the first in a series of posts where we explore the data trends from our 2014-15 SSAT practice tests. In this installment, we’ll see which US states’ test takers had the strongest performances.

Performance by SSAT Section

The SSAT has three sections: Verbal, Reading, and Quantitative. When we looked at our practice test data from this past year, we noticed that five states—Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Florida, and Washington—attained the highest scores on these sections, but there were variations between each state’s particular strengths. Here is a map of the top-performing states by section:

New Jersey and Massachusetts tended to outperform other states on all three sections. Florida came in with a relatively strong performance on Reading, and California’s students were second only to Massachusetts when it came to math. Those are the general trends. We also collected data on performance when it came to specific math question types. Let’s delve deeper into which precise subjects were the strongest for these top-five states.

California SSAT Math Performance

When Californian students aren’t out enjoying the sun and surf, they are dominating the competition in determining combinations of items like coins (12.34% above average), evaluating fraction operations (14.42% above average), and figuring out word problems involving proportions (24.56% above average).

Florida SSAT Math Performance

Florida’s test takers outperformed others in multiplying and dividing with decimals (14.40% above average), determining the nth term when faced with a pattern (15.28% above average), and finding the slope of a line when given a perpendicular slope.

Massachusetts SSAT Math Performance

Massachusetts’ students powered through questions that involved multiplying and dividing integers (13.64% above average), shape construction of 2-D figures (20.26% above average), and solving problems given unit rates and costs (6.98% above average).

New Jersey SSAT Math Performance

Denizens of the Garden State edged out other contenders when it came to metric unit conversions (7.57% above average), predicting the next number when given a pattern (16.46% above average), and solving for missing digits (5.13% above average). Jersey seems to be training some top-notch detectives.

Washington SSAT Math Performance

Test takers from Washington won out on questions involving total costs (7.55% above average), addition and subtraction estimates (5.61% above average), and division problems with no remainder (12.07% above average).

Conclusions

We have a few untested hypotheses about these marked differences between states. They might be due to specific curriculum disparities in certain parts of the country. There is also a chance that more stringent competition affects these numbers: perhaps students applying to prestigious boarding schools in New Jersey are already more prepared for the SSAT than students in Seattle applying to slightly less competitive day schools. And lastly, as statisticians we do need to point out that sample sizes varied between some data sets—there were more Californian test-takers, for example, than Washingtonian ones. In any case, we found these disparities very interesting to look at, and we hope you did too! Data Analyzed by Sam C. Written by Geoff D.

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]]> Did grade level affect performance on ISEE practice tests? /blog/how-did-grade-level-affect-performance-on-our-isee-practice-tests/ Fri, 07 Aug 2015 22:49:00 +0000 /?p=4322 This is the first in a three-part series of data analysis posts. We wanted to investigate how a student's grade level affected their performance on our ISEE tests. {C}In the first part, we'll show you our findings about fifth versus sixth grade performance.

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This is the first in a three-part series of data analysis posts. We wanted to investigate how a student’s grade level affected their performance on our ISEE tests. In the first part, we’ll show you our findings about fifth versus sixth grade performance.

On both the official ISEE and our ISEE practice tests, students take tests based on their grade level: current fourth and fifth graders take the Lower Level, sixth and seventh graders take the Middle Level, and eighth through eleventh graders take the Upper Level. As a result, students in different grades are taking the same test content within a given test level. We know that older students have had additional learning time and, as a result, they should see increased performance on the ISEE versus their younger counterparts.

Here at 91ÁÔÆæ, we were curious which types of questions saw the greatest performance increase between older students and younger students within a given test level.

The implications of this are important for students, parents and educators. For younger students, it provides insight into areas where additional practice could give them a leg up on their peers. For older students, it may emphasize areas where less focus is necessary because their additional schooling has already helped to fill gaps in these specific content areas

ISEE Practice Test Section-by-Section Analysis

Perhaps unsurprisingly, sixth graders surpass fifth graders on all the sections of the Lower Level ISEE practice tests, improving by over nine percentage points in each section. The area where sixth graders have the greatest advantage over fifth graders is the Mathematics Achievement section, where sixth graders perform over 11 percentage points higher than fifth graders. That is a significant performance increase from fifth to sixth grade!


So it’s clear that sixth graders have an edge on fifth graders. Now let’s break this analysis down more by looking at specific question types.

Question Family Analysis

We measured students’ performance in terms of Question Families—broad subject types that fall under the mathematics umbrella. On the Lower Level ISEE, sixth graders outperformed fifth graders by the greatest margins on: Digits (25.3 percentage points), Angles (21.1 percentage points), and Simplifying Expressions (20.5 percentage points).

Question Group Analysis

A more granular analysis of question types shows that sixth graders outperformed fifth graders by the greatest margins on: Computation with Time (27.6 percentage points), Solving for Remaining Angles (26.1 percentage points), and Value of Digits (25.3 percentage points).

What do these questions look like?

A typical question from our Lower Level ISEE practice tests that exemplifies the Computations with Time question group looks like this:

3.75 hours is how many minutes less than 5 hours?
(A) 30
(B) 55
(C) 75
(D) 100

Did you solve it? The answer is C, 75 minutes. By focusing on question types like these, fifth grade students can help to boost their scores relative to other fifth graders. By labeling this question type as review, sixth grade students can improve their scores by focusing their preparation on different, less familiar topics.

Ready to prep for the ISEE?

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