Our story
It started with one mother, two boys, and a test nobody told her about
Sweta landed in the United States in December 2004. Like a lot of first-generation immigrants, she arrived with more determination than context — and with one goal that sat above all the others: her children would get an education better than the one she'd had to fight for.
Two boys followed. And with them, years of quietly figuring out a school system nobody hands you a manual for. Which questions to ask. Which forms actually matter. What the acronyms mean.
Then, at a school coffee morning in the Seattle suburbs, another parent mentioned the Highly Capable programalmost in passing — Washington's track for advanced learners, with its own screening test and its own deadline. Sweta had never heard of it. Her son was already in second grade.
That evening she did what any parent would do: she went looking for practice material. What she found is the reason this company exists.
“I wasn't looking for an advantage. I was looking for a fair shot — for my sons to walk in knowing what the questions even looked like. It turned out that was surprisingly hard to buy at any price.”
What she actually found
Six problems, over and over. Each one is now a thing iPrepGenius refuses to do.
The free questions were years out of date
Sample sets floating around parent forums had been copied from PDFs older than her children. Tests change; those questions hadn't.
Every question is written to each test's current published blueprint — and the bank grows continuously rather than sitting in a folder.
The same questions repeated over and over
After two sessions her son had memorised the answers. He looked ready. He wasn't — he'd learned the set, not the skill.
Practice is generated fresh and never repeats, so improvement means the reasoning improved — not that the child recognised the item.
Nothing matched what the test actually measures
Worksheets drilled vocabulary and arithmetic. The screener was mostly nonverbal reasoning — figure matrices and pattern logic her son had never once seen.
Content is built battery by battery to the real composition of each test. (We later published the data on this — it's roughly two-thirds nonverbal.)
Everything was one-size-fits-all
Her older and younger son were at completely different levels, working from the identical printout. One was bored; the other was lost.
Difficulty adapts question by question, and every session targets the child's weakest skill instead of an average child's.
She never knew if he was ready
There was no way to answer the only question that mattered to a parent the night before the test.
A readiness score, calibrated to the real standard, that updates as the child practises — plus a free diagnostic anyone can take without signing up.
The alternative was a tutor she couldn't justify
Private prep ran well past a hundred dollars an hour. As a single-income immigrant family, that maths never worked.
A free tier that is genuinely useful — practice questions, printable packs, guides and the diagnostic — with paid plans priced for families, not investors.
So she built it herself
Not as a business, at first. Just as a folder of questions written for her own sons — organised by the skill each one tested, refreshed so nothing could be memorised, and made a little harder each time they got comfortable.
Fifteen minutes after dinner. Never long enough to feel like a punishment. And crucially, framed as puzzles rather than as a test that would decide something about who they were.
Both boys were accepted into the Highly Capable program in the Lake Washington School District. The younger one, she likes to point out, mostly enjoyed the figure matrices.
What stayed with her afterwards wasn't the acceptance letters. It was the realisation of how close they came to never applying at all — because nobody told her the program existed, and because the preparation she needed wasn't sitting anywhere she could find it. She kept meeting parents in exactly that position: capable children, engaged families, and a process nobody had explained to them.
iPrepGenius is that folder of questions, rebuilt properly and opened up to every family who's standing where she stood in 2012 — including the ones who can't pay for it.
What we hold ourselves to
- We never publish a score cutoff we haven't verified — we point you to your district instead.
- We never reproduce real test items. Every question is original.
- The free resources are actually free. No card, no trial wall, no bait.
- We tell parents when prep won't help as readily as when it will.
We also publish our own open research on what these tests actually measure — free for anyone to read or cite, whether or not they ever become a customer.
Standing where Sweta stood?
Start with the free diagnostic — no signup, no card. It tells you where your child actually is today.
One practice question and one practical tip each week — the things Sweta wishes someone had told her in 2012.
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Questions or press enquiries: info@iprepgenius.com. iPrepGenius is an independent study resource and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any school district or test publisher, including the Lake Washington School District.