Data Analysis: How our test takers performed by state
Over the summer, we’ve been poring over the tens of thousands of data points we attained from our ISEE practice test system this year. We were interested to see how students performed by question type, especially when it came to geographic location. We found that five states were the top performers on all sections of the ISEE, but there were slight variations in their relative strengths. Here is a map of the top five states–New York, Massachusetts, California, Texas, and Washington–by ISEE section:
Interestingly, we found that for certain question types, some states performed better than others. Let’s take a look at the math subjects that each state found the easiest relative to others.
California ISEE Math Performance
California outperformed other states when it came to multiplying binomial equations (26.32% above average), finding the area of a rectangle (17.13% above average)—we’re not sure why Wyoming and Colorado weren’t best at this one—and determining the perimeter of an equilateral triangle (4.12% above average). Overall, California was a very geometrically adept state.
Massachusetts ISEE Math Performance
Massachusetts’ most dominant subjects were data collection and random sampling (15.39% above average), predicting the next shapes in a pattern (19.32% above average), and determining the rule from a pattern of numbers (9.89% above average). Do you see a pattern?
New York ISEE Math Performance
Students from New York were superior on questions involving multiplying integers (19.05% above average), simplifying expressions (14.60% above average), and solving equations (11.21% above average). Algebra and arithmetic were the strong points here.
Texas ISEE Math Performance
The Lone Star State’s test takers enjoyed great success on questions with time-and-distance-based graphs (15.54% above average), solving equations using substitution (9.39% above average), and finding the angles of quadrilaterals using addition (11.57% above average).
Washington ISEE Math Performance
Washington not only leads the nation in apple production; it also produces students who were especially good at story problems with graphs (35.71% above average), finding least common multiples (20.90% above average), and finding the nth term in a sequence (23.82% above average).
Conclusions
If the level of competition has anything to do with performance on these tests, then we aren’t surprised to see New York leading the pack in many of our measures. Many students in Manhattan start taking competitive admissions tests at a young age and are often very accustomed to rigorous exams like the ISEE. We were interested to see that each of our top five states had relative strong points. It’s possible that slight curriculum differences, in addition to the level of competition, could contribute to these discrepancies. We performed a similar analysis for our SSAT practice tests. You can read about our findings here. And stay tuned for more ISEE practice test analysis!
