Could you pass this kindergarten admissions test? The tough new exam for New York City's private schools

Could you pass this kindergarten admissions test? The tough new exam for New York City's private schools

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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Question one: Bright Kids NYC devised a set of practice questions to help children prepare for ERB's Admission Assessment for Beginning Learners

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.  

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Question two: The new kindergarten admission test was created to assess math and literacy skills

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Question three: The new test costs just $65, while the fee for the previous exam was $568

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.

HOW DID YOU DO? THE ANSWERS...

Question one

Question two

Question three

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.'