CogAT Test 6th Grade Samples & Tips (2024)

• Which CogAT Level is Administered to 6th Graders?
• Test Format and Content
• How to Prepare for the CogAT
• Studying Tips

Which CogAT Level is Administered to 6th Graders?

The CogAT Level 12, like all CogAT Form 7 levels, corresponds with the students’ ages and is designed for 12-year-old students in the 6th grade. Therefore, the CogAT Level 12 is generally administered to all 6th graders.

The CogAT 6th grade is used to evaluate verbal, nonverbal, and quantitative abilities often for the purposes of determining admissions to programs for gifted students. It is particularly useful for assessing academic strengths and weaknesses among students. For students who are not native English speakers, the CogAT 6th grade is beneficial, as the main focus of the test is not verbal abilities.

Due to the advanced level of students in the 6th grade, the CogAT Level 12 is made up of fewer pictures than the lower levels. The Nonverbal Battery in this level contains images and is similarly formatted to the Nonverbal Batteries of the lower levels, while the Verbal and Quantitative Batteries do not contain images. By the time a student reaches the 6th grade, his/her intellectual interests begin to expand and s/he begins to think in a more abstract manner. Additionally, this is a time when students start to develop research and application skills. These developments enable 6th grade students to solve more advanced questions. Given the difficulty of the CogAT Level 12, it is important to ensure that your child is prepared.

Test Format and Content

The three batteries of the CogAT 6th grade (the Verbal Battery, the Quantitative Battery, and the Nonverbal Battery) form a test consisting of 176 total CogAT questions. Depending on the needs of the school and/or administering instructor, the three batteries may be administered separately or together. Each battery is further broken into three subtests. See the complete breakdown of the test in the table below:

CogAT Form 7 Batteries

*Primary levels (5/6-8) contain Picture Analogies and Picture Classification. Higher levels contain Verbal Analogies and Verbal Classification.

How to Prepare for the CogAT

Make sure your child is prepared for the 6th Grade CogAT with the help of TestPrep-Online. With our practice materials, your child is sure to succeed. Check out our CogAT practice tests.

Our practice tests contain a full-length simulation with questions covering all three batteries and of course, all the sub-tests of the CogAT. Each question in the practice pack has a detailed explanation you can use to learn new strategies, or double check your reasoning. It is crucial that you go over all the questions to know exactly what to expect the day of the test.

For some questions, it is enough to see a few explanations and solutions to really understand the general idea of the question. However, for other questions, you really need to practice and develop the skill that will help you tackle more of these questions and succeed solving them.

Remember that you can retake all of our tests many times and track your progress. If you have a section with particularly challenging questions, you may want to prefer leaving those after you have mastered the rest of the topics of the CogAT. This, in turn, is a personal matter and you obviously should study in a matter that is most agreeable to you and so that you may focus and really understand everything.

Studying Tips

• Allow yourself enough time to prepare. It is important to dedicate enough time to each answer, and to each explanation. Two weeks of studying should suffice to prepare for the test. This depends on your availability but studying a few hours every day is always a good way to prepare.
• Make sure you eat and rest properly before the test. A mind well-rested will be fresh at the time of the test and especially aware of any misleading answer choices.
• Measure your performance by timing the test. Often the biggest challenge people encounter in tests is having to answer to all the questions in such a small amount of time.
• Even if you get a question correctly, read the explanation. You can always learn something new about the question, the logic behind it, or even how to get to a quicker solution.
• Try taking short breaks between quizzes. Some people work best by focusing for a few hours and then taking a bigger break, whereas others prefer taking smaller breaks during their study sessions to remain fresh and not feel too tired from an intellectually demanding task.

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