Beginning this year, the city will rely heavily on a test that mostly assesses spatial thinking skills and uses almost no words or language.

WSJ: City Defends Gifted-and-Talented Program Policy

The National Research Council issued a report in 2009 saying parents, teachers and caregivers need more information about helping preschoolers learn about numbers, spatial thinking and measurement.

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This test, which relies on abstract spatial thinking, will now account for about two-thirds of the score, while the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) will be about a third.

WSJ: Conflicted Over Gifted: NYC's Gifted and Talented Test Changes

The team told him to use "motor" imagery like a tennis match to indicate "yes" and "spatial" imagery like thinking about roaming the streets for a "no".

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