CCTST-N Question Categories for AET & AOS applicants
Congratulations for making it to the semifinal round! All Academies of Loudoun (Academy of Science and Academy of Engineering and Technology) will need to take CCTST-N as one of the requirements in the final round, along with essay writing, usually scheduled on the second Saturday of January of their 8th grade.
Since this is a new entrance test adapted by the Academies of Loudoun, there are no commercially available materials for purchase. What are some skills that your student might need to be considered prepared for CCTST-N?
Here they are in a nutshell, according to the CCTST-N user guide manual:
ANALYSIS: Students must know how to apply analysis to gather information from charts, graphs, diagrams, spoken language, and documents. People with strong analytical skills attend to patterns and to details. They identify the elements of a situation and determine how those elements interact. Strong interpretation skills can support high-quality analysis by providing insights into the significance of what a person is saying or what something means.
INTERPRETATION: This can b applied in contents like Reading, Writing, Science, Logic and Math. We use interpretation to determine the precise meaning and significance of a message or signal, whether it is a gesture, sign, set of data, written or spoken words, diagram, icon, chart, or graph. Correct interpretation depends on understanding the message in its context and in terms of who sent it, and for what purpose. Interpretation includes clarifying what something or someone means, grouping or categorizing information, and determining the significance of a message.
INFERENCE: This is the ability to draw conclusions from reasons and evidence. We use inference when we offer thoughtful suggestions and hypotheses. Inference skills indicate the necessary or the very probable consequences of a given set of facts and conditions. Conclusions, hypotheses, recommendations, or decisions that are based on faulty analyses, misinformation, bad data, or biased evaluations can turn out to be mistaken, even if they have been reached using excellent inference skills.
EVALUATION: Evaluative reasoning skills enable us to assess the credibility of sources of information and the claims they make. Strong explanation skills can support high-quality evaluation by providing the evidence, reasons, methods, criteria, or assumptions behind the claims made and the conclusions reached.
EXPLANATION: This skill is somewhat self-explanatory! Explanatory reasoning skills enable us to describe the evidence, reasons, methods, assumptions, standards, or rationale for those decisions, opinions, beliefs, and conclusions. Strong explanatory skills enable people to discover, to test, and to articulate the reasons for beliefs, events, actions, and decisions.
INDUCTION: We use inductive reasoning skills when we draw inferences about what we think is probably true based on analogies, case studies, prior experience, statistical analyses, simulations, hypotheticals, and patterns recognized in familiar objects, events, experiences, and behaviors. Inductive reasoning can provide a confident basis for solid belief in our conclusions and a reasonable basis for action.
DEDUCTION: Deductive reasoning moves with exacting precision from the assumed truth of a set of beliefs to a conclusion that cannot be false if those beliefs are true. Deductive validity is rigorously logical and clear-cut. Deductive validity leaves no room for uncertainty, unless one alters the meanings of words or the grammar of the language.
NUMERACY: Numeracy refers to the ability to solve quantitative reasoning problems, or to make judgments derived from quantitative reasoning in a variety of contexts. More than being able to compute a solution to a mathematical equation, numeracy includes the understanding of how quantitative information is gathered, manipulated, and represented visually, such as in graphs, charts, tables, and diagrams.
Wanted to try out some sample questions? Visit our CCTST-N Practice Test online. Since your students will take it online, it makes sense to practice them online!
