North StarContestsGifted & Cognitive Test Prep
In Canada? See the Ontario NGAT page
Grades 2–7 · Fairfax, Denver, Carrollton–Farmers Branch, Beaverton and other NGAT districtsNGAT Practice for US Gifted Screening
One short assessment. One gap report. Find out where your child's reasoning actually stands — free.
Your child takes the NGAT this school year. You've been told it measures thinking rather than knowledge, which is true — and also means there's no textbook to open. So start with the only question worth answering first: how does your child handle these question types right now?
Free NGAT-style assessment for grades 2–7
Verbal, quantitative and nonverbal questions in the NGAT format. Plus a gap report showing where the reasoning broke.
See your child's practice report, live
Every question your child answers updates the parent dashboard: questions answered, accuracy, days practiced, the daily target, and the concepts to work on next. A 34-second look.
How it works
Tell us the district and grade
Takes 30 seconds, no card.
Your child takes the free assessment
About 15 minutes, timed like the real test.
You get the gap report
Tonight, not after a scheduled call.
Decide from there
The full pack is $49 if you want it, and nothing happens if you don't.
Who we are
North Star Contests is a registered Canadian not-for-profit. We run math contests and daily reasoning practice for students in Grades 1–8, all year — gifted screening prep is one part of that. We write our own questions.
What the NGAT actually measures
Verbal reasoning
Picture classification · Picture analogies
Each shows pictures, not words: your child finds the picture that belongs with a group, or completes a picture analogy. No reading needed.
Quantitative reasoning
Number series · Number matrices · Symbol equations
Each asks your child to find the number rule in a sequence, a grid, or a set of symbol equations.
Nonverbal reasoning
Figure matrices · Property matrices · Pattern completion · Spatial visualization
Each asks your child to spot a visual rule and apply it to a new figure.
Districts give the NGAT at school, usually online, as one part of deciding which students may benefit from gifted services. Which grades take it, and when, is up to each district.
When does your district test?
Dates are set by each district and change every year. Confirm with your school.
| District | Who takes the NGAT | Testing window | Deadline / how to get tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fairfax County Public Schools, VA | Who takes the NGATAll grade 2 students; grades 3–7 without an ability test score | Testing windowFall and spring windows; each school sets its dates | Deadline / how to get testedAAP referral deadlines: Oct 15 (fall) and Dec 15 (spring), 2026 |
| Denver Public Schools, CO | Who takes the NGATAll grade 2 students (K and 6 take the NNAT3) | Testing windowFall, about late September to early December | Deadline / how to get testedNo referral needed (universal screening) |
| Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, TX | Who takes the NGATAll kindergarten and grade 5 students | Testing windowFall semester | Deadline / how to get testedNo referral needed; other grades can be referred the following year |
| Beaverton School District, OR | Who takes the NGATAll grade 3 (Nonverbal), grade 4 (Verbal) and grade 5 (Quantitative) students | Testing windowOct 5 – Nov 10, 2026 | Deadline / how to get testedReferrals only for grades outside 3–5 |
Last checked: November 2026.
Sources: Fairfax County Public Schools (VA) · Denver Public Schools (CO) · Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD (TX) · Beaverton School District (OR)
District not listed? The NGAT format is the same everywhere, so the practice still applies.
What your child will see
Grades 2–7, in any district that uses the NGAT.
Districts & timing
Each district chooses its own grades and testing window, often kindergarten, grade 2 or grades 3–5, and most test in the fall. The table above shows four districts.
Question types
Three separate tests, Verbal, Quantitative and Nonverbal, all answered from pictures and figures rather than reading.
What tends to be hardest
Figure matrices that combine two rules at once tend to be hardest at this age — spotting one pattern is easy, holding two in mind together is the harder skill.
What a question looks like
Original questions written by us — never reproduced from any published test.
Nonverbal reasoning · Figure matrix
Which figure completes the pattern?
Answer: a square rotated 120°, roughly 8px across.
Each row rotates the shape a fixed amount moving right, and each column shrinks the shape moving down. The missing figure continues both patterns at once — the reasoning skill is holding two rules in mind together, not recognizing either one alone.
Quantitative reasoning · Number series
What number comes next?
Answer: 42
The gap between terms grows by two each time: +4, +6, +8, +10, then +12. Spotting that the differences themselves form a pattern is the actual skill — the numbers are just small enough that a child can check it by hand.
Free NGAT-style assessment for grades 2–7
Verbal, quantitative and nonverbal questions in the NGAT format. Plus a gap report showing where the reasoning broke.
You don't need five thousand questions tonight
Other programs
The whole library
5,000 questions, all at once
≈ you decide where to start
North Star
The next 20
custom picked for your child from ~2,000
≈ 20 minutes a day
Other programs hand you a library — thousands of practice questions, worksheets, games, hours of video — and leave you to work out where to start. Your child has a few weeks and a bedtime.
We have close to 2,000 questions too. Your child just never sees them all at once. Each session serves a short set of one question type, chosen for their grade, and the next set adjusts to how the last one went. Small doses, no wall of questions, no fatigue.
When your child gets one wrong, there's an explanation right there — so the evening ends with something learned instead of a parent who also doesn't know why the answer was C.
Start with the free assessment, see the gaps in the report, then decide whether you need the rest.
What you get back
After the assessment, you get a gap report — not just a score. It shows which question types your child moved through easily, which ones slowed them down, and where the reasoning came apart. Timing included, because pacing is most of the difficulty.
Gap report — sample
It's the thing most parents actually want and can't get anywhere else: a clear picture of how their child thinks, before test day decides it for them.
Does preparation help?
School districts tell families no preparation is necessary for the NGAT. We think that's right about content. There is nothing to memorize — no vocabulary list, no formula sheet — and any program promising to raise your child's score is overpromising.
Familiarity is a different thing. A child who has never seen a figure matrix under time pressure spends the first minutes working out what is being asked. A child who has seen the format spends those minutes answering. Neither child reasons better than the other. One is simply less surprised.
That is all we offer, and we think it is the honest version of what a parent can reasonably do.
Why a worksheet won't show you what you need to know
You see where the reasoning breaks, not just what was wrong
A PDF tells you the answer was incorrect. The platform shows which step the thinking came apart on.
Adaptive, not repetitive
Questions adjust to what your child already handles, so time goes to the question types that are genuinely unfamiliar.
Timed the way the real thing is
Pacing is most of the difficulty. Practice on paper, with a parent nearby and no clock, doesn't rehearse the actual conditions.
Free to start — an assessment and gap report, then decide
No commitment up front. See the report before deciding whether the full pack is worth it.
Try a sample question
Three Grade 4 questions, one of each type, in the same format as the Test Prep Pack.
What's included
Everything is matched to the NGAT format and your child's grade. Nothing here is a generic North American test-prep library.
Grade-matched question sets
Questions matched to the NGAT format and your child's grade — not a generic set stretched across every test in North America.
Adaptive question selection
The platform reads what your child already handles and spends their time on the question types that are genuinely unfamiliar.
Gap report for parents
After every session: which question types were solid, which slowed them down, where the reasoning came apart. Timing included.
Step-by-step explanations
Every question has a worked explanation — so when your child gets one wrong at 8pm, the evening ends with something learned.
Printable question sets
Prefer paper? Every set can be printed, so practice doesn't have to mean more screen time.
Timed practice
Sessions run under the same time pressure as the real test, because pacing is most of the difficulty.
One purchase, every child
The full pack covers every child in your family — not per-student pricing.
What it costs
Most NGAT programs won't tell you until you book a call. Here's ours.
Free
$0
✓ A short assessment in the NGAT format
✓ A gap report showing where the reasoning held and where it didn't
✓ No card, no call, no scheduling
Full Test Prep Pack
$49 USD one-time
✓ Close to 2,000 questions, served a short set at a time
✓ Three months of access, timed to your testing window
✓ Step-by-step explanations on every question
✓ Every child in your family included
✓ No subscription, no renewal
That's the whole price. There's no upsell, no per-child fee and nothing to cancel.
Frequently asked questions
Free NGAT-style assessment for grades 2–7
Verbal, quantitative and nonverbal questions in the NGAT format. Plus a gap report showing where the reasoning broke.