by cokie Tuesday, March 18th, 2008  4 comments

When your four-year-old is not a “Super-tester”

NYC’s kindergartens are turning students away left and right.

Possibly because of the infinite coolness of Brooklyn living and definitely because New Yorkers have more and better sex than ordinary humans, the number of Big Apple five-year-olds has increased more than 25 percent in recent years, forcing the Department of Education to institute new, stricter guidelines for kindergarten acceptance into “gifted schools.”

Previously, children who scored 90 percent or higher were pretty much guaranteed acceptance into an accelerated program. Now, children from the 90th to 94th percentile are juiced. Acceptance is now granted to those who score 95 percent or above. These children are termed “super-testers.”

It won’t be long before this trend spills over to other large cities throughout the US, and then to the smaller farming communities, because, you know, trends always travel from east to west, and then to the smaller farming communities. Now more than ever, it’s important to recognize as early as possible if your child is a super-tester, so that if they are not, you can intervene and brighten their hopes for the future.

Signs that your child is a super-tester:

• S/he can say “waaa” in three languages at approximately two weeks of age.

• When you change a dirty diaper, your child also submits any scratch sheets showing his or her “work.”

• S/he has a ginormous forehead.

• When given 20 minutes to feed from a bottle, s/he finishes in five minutes and then goes back and finishes bottles from earlier in the day.

• When s/he does not know the answers to questions, such as “Who has a stinky diaper?!” or “Who is so beautiful?!” or “Who is Daddy’s favorite gal/guy?”, s/he does not guess, but simply moves quickly to the next question.

• S/he can thump or burp answers to simple mathematical questions.

Signs that your child is not a super-tester:

• S/he can only say “waaa” in one language and, when pressed for more, burps.

• When you change a dirty diaper, s/he pees on you.

• S/he has a beautiful, normal-sized head. You can’t have brains and beauty, so stop whining.

• When given 20 minutes to feed from a bottle, s/he takes the required amount of time, then acts offended when two additional ounces don’t magically appear.

• When s/he does not know the answers to questions, such as “Who has a stinky diaper?!” or “Who is so beautiful?!” or “Who is Daddy’s favorite gal/guy?”, s/he simply replies “All of the above.”

• When asked mathematical questions, s/he simply passes gas.

Children who are not “super-testers” are termed “normal.” If your child is “normal,” fear not. The Princeton Review is now accepting applications for kindergarten acceptance test prep courses. However, competition is tight. You must start interviewing for your “normal” child’s acceptance into the kindergarten acceptance test prep course 4 months before the birth of the prospective kindergartener. And it helps (significantly) if your child has a sibling who has already completed the course.

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