11 Plus Exams Forum

Question 7 asks "Where did John Harrison build his first clock"

The answer in the booklet is C - In London

but the text clearly states "John Harrison.... born in Yorkshire, taught himself, when still young, to make fine clocks"

My daughter therefore selected answer E - Yorkshire

I think the question should read "Where did JH build his first MARINE clock"

Also, the answer to question 16 is "He was a friend of the king", but the text doesn't say this directly, merely that he appealed to the king, quite different from being a friend.

Personally I would struggle to get full marks on these papers.

Resmum

Hey- A pupil who took this test scored 40%. Does anyone know roughly what the pass mark would be so I can give the parents a rough guide to this.
Many thanks.

I've used this test a few times over the years and all children have answered C but I think your daughter has a valid point. I am a bit puzzled at the other question you mentioned -- the right answer is C which has no connection with friendship with the king.

As to what pupils score, I've had about 6 or 7 do the test in the past and the range of scores was 38 to 43 out of 50 but this was after they had done several other series of English tests so this was them approaching their optimum performance. I shall probably not use it for my own child (sitting exams this year) as it is not relevent for our particular exams.

As to what pupils score, I've had about 6 or 7 do the test in the past and the range of scores was 38 to 43 out of 50

I'm a complete novice to all this!! Is that considered a good score?

The NFER English papers are probably the hardest you can do, barring the Bond Test Papers. In other series (e.g. alpha series) children might get nearly full marks, but, in my experience, they rarely do in NFER papers. Most of the children I see, however, are from state primaries which don't necessarily do a great deal of comprehension before year 6 and the SATS.
Perhaps independent children will score higher, but I am generally quite pleased with 42 out of 50 (in fact, one of my children won a scholarship to a highly competeitive independent and was scoring this in English).

Similarly I am satsfied with anything above 42/50 in NFER maths.

Ultimately everything depends on which grammar school you are targeting and their expectations/exam format.

Hi all,

Quite an interesting thread going here, even though it was a while ago!

I didnt realise that 42/50 was considered a good mark, some parents really play on the "youre only allowed to get one or two wrong" not to mention the ones who claim you have to get 100%.

Just for historic reasons, both of your points have also featured in previous postings to this forum some months ago. You are right on both counts, the way that the questions are asked allows for more than one answers (or allows for no answers at all!)

My son hated the English NFER and did rather bad in all four papers. He went ahead and passed at his grammar school (QEB, it uses an NFER type test for the English part) and now peforms brilliantly in his English class at year 7.

My son hated the English NFER and did rather bad in all four papers. He went ahead and passed at his grammar school (QEB, it uses an NFER type test for the English part) and now peforms brilliantly in his English class at year 7.

For reassurance purposes would you be willing to expand on how bad, bad actually is!!

My son also hates NFER English and I'm beginning to feel as though best laid plans are falling apart!!

My son also gets terrible marks on the Nfer Engish papers - 22, 23, 22 out of 49 so far. I haven't felt up to giving him the last paper yet - it's just too depressing!

Any reassurance would be gratefully received. Son does well on VR, NVR and maths Nfer papers.