IQ and gifted tests

Torrance and CAP

Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and the Creativity Assessment Packet (CAP)

Some gifted programs look for creative thinking as well as reasoning. The Torrance Tests and the CAP are the two creativity tests families meet most. Both ask open questions with no single right answer.

The Torrance Tests have a picture form, where children turn simple lines and shapes into drawings and give them titles, and a word form, where they list ideas, questions and unusual uses for everyday things. The CAP has a similar drawing task, a short questionnaire about how the child sees their own curiosity and imagination, and a rating scale filled in by a parent and a teacher.

Ages
Torrance: Kindergarten to adult. CAP: 6 to 18
How it is given
Usually to a group by a teacher or gifted coordinator; sometimes one-to-one
How long
Torrance word tasks about 45 minutes; CAP about 20 to 25 minutes

What it measures

  • Fluency: how many ideas a child produces
  • Flexibility: how many different kinds of idea
  • Originality: how unusual the ideas are
  • Elaboration: how much detail is added
  • Imagination and curiosity, as the child and adults see them (CAP)

What you can do

  • There is nothing to practice in the usual sense, and rehearsed answers stop being original. What helps is a habit of open-ended play.
  • Ask 'how many ways could we use a paper cup?' and welcome silly answers.
  • Draw from a squiggle: one person makes a mark, the other turns it into a picture and names it.
  • Tell your child that on test day, more ideas and more detail are welcome, and there is no wrong answer.

Practice for the same skills

None of these is the Torrance and CAP. Each one builds a general skill it draws on, in a short, friendly format your child can try at home.

Practice the skills, not the test

These tests are given in person by a trained examiner, and their questions are kept private: publishers do not sell them to families, and nobody can lawfully offer the real items. Nothing on this site is taken from them.

Drilling a child on copies of the questions would not help either. A result is only meaningful if the questions are new to your child, so a rehearsed score can place them in a program that does not fit, and a psychologist may set it aside.

Other tests

Test names belong to their publishers and to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. Scholar Tests is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, and nothing on these pages is taken from a test. Ages and times are the publishers' published ranges; editions change, so check the details with the person giving the test.