Forget the SAT: A difficult new test for pre-schoolers is the latest cause of stress for New York City parents.
Some of the city's elite private schools, such as Horace Mann and Riverdale Country School, have adopted a new exam for kindergarten admission, created to assess math and literacy skills.
ERB's Admission Assessment for Beginning Learners will be administered on an iPad, unlike ERB's previous test, which was given by a trained examiner.
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There are some upsides to the new test: It's much cheaper than its predecessor, costing just $65 rather than the old fee of $568. And parents will receive a score report in two business days, while they previously had to wait three or four weeks.
ERB, an educational services company, describes the AABL on its website as a 'creative interactive approach to learning' that schools use for admission and placement.
ERB says that the exam, which will be
offered starting in October, assesses the verbal and quantitative
reasoning, early literacy and mathematics skills of Pre-K through Grade 1 applicants, and compares them to other children taking the test throughout the United States.
The site also claims that the iPad interface provides an 'enjoyable testing environment' for children.
Those familiar with the new test say it may require more preparation than the old version.
'The
AABL is supposed to identify a child's ability and achievement,' Emily
Glickman, president of Abacus Guide Educational Consulting, told DNAinfo.
'That achievement part - how much you learned - is totally new. You
usually think of an achievement test as something you take in high
school. It's not something you think of for preschoolers.'
Last fall, a group
of private schools made the decision to do away with ERB's old test,
which had been used for nearly half a century.
In September 2013, The New York Times
reported that the Independent Schools Admissions Association of Greater
New York, which represents more than 140 private schools, 'cited
concerns that scores had been inflated by widespread test preparation
and thus was no longer an accurate measure of ability,' announcing plans
to develop a new assessment to replace it.
Some
schools are waiting to make a decision on whether to require the new
test, some are still accepting the old one and others are creating their
own exams.
Bige Doruk, founder and CEO of New York-based tutoring company Bright Kids, told the Wall Street Journal
that prep booklets for the new test would be sold later this year.
Bright Kids has also devised a set of practice questions, based on
previous field tests, which focus largely on pattern recognition.
However, she aptly points out: 'You can only ask so many questions of a 4-year-old.'