If your child is applying to prekindergarten (at many, but not all, private schools), kindergarten (at almost all schools) or 1st grade, she will be asked to take the ERB. Other ERB names you may encounter are WPPSI or ECAA.
The ERB is supposedly an IQ test, but if you ask around you will find that you know a lot of bright people who bombed the test as preschoolers. Research indicates that ERB scores have no bearing on future success. That said, NYC private schools persist in using the ERB as a screening device. Even the people who make the ERB never intended it to be a private school screening device.
So what is the ERB? Briefly:
Verbal Section
Children have to define words, explain how words are similar, answer riddles, and explain social conventions and general knowledge.
Performance Section
Children use block cubes to replicate the tester’s design, select pictures that are conceptually similar, copy symbols from a key, and figure out what’s missing from an incomplete table of objects.
Parents I work with are always amazed what preschoolers are supposed to be able to accomplish.