11 Plus Exams Forum

Just wondered whether there is an update on the exam content 2014 for both King Edwards Birmingham and Queen Mary Walsall

There won't be any this year I'm afraid - zero responses to my request for feedback

KenR wrote:There won't be any this year I'm afraid - zero responses to my request for feedback

That's the first time you've had no feedback Ken since 2005 I think .... Come on guys, it helps all us forumites if you can give some of your feedback (if you can remember any now from last year, no matter how trivial) to Ken. This is what these forums are all about.

After the test (for the Walsall & Wrekin consortium), my son could not tell me much more than that the test was not as hard as the tests he practiced (cgp 10-11), but not too easy either. Couldn't squeeze anything else from him.

We made notes to put on the forum when my daughter came out - I just hadn't sent it to KenR

comprehension - factual piece on driverless cars. She thought this was v confusing.

Tricky questions such as "which of the following four statements is NOT correct"

Next came synonyms and antonyms. There was a choice of about 6 words - more than my daughter expected. The only word she could remember was blueprint. She said she had to guess some of these.

Cloze

This was about Japanese tea ceremonies and she thought only contained the missing letter type of cloZe. She found this ok.

There was no other VR type questions - no jumbled sentences or chose most appropriate word from a selection or anything like that. Just the comp, the cloZe and synonyms/ antonyms.

The NVR was all one type - 3x3 grids with one square blank and you had to chose this one from the options they gave you. There was no variation - all of NVR was like this.

Maths was word problem type questions with a number of sub questions to each main question. This wasn't multi choice - you had to write answer in a box.

There was a time distance speed question with a graph. This started off easy by asking them to read from the graph which had time and distance travelled on a bike. Then progressed to questions like if you could hire a bike for 1 hr for £x how much would it cost to travel x miles.

Another question about area and perimeter on shape made up of rectangles and triangles. There were also angles questions in this.

A question about stacking cups where questions were heights of different combinations of stacked cups. This sounded more like a sequence question.

In the maths there was another question about jewellery made with different proportions of silver and gold. Sounded like a ratio and proportion question. Eg silver costs x and gold costs y how much does a necklace of different amounts of gold and silver cost.

I hope this is helpful - sorry I didn't post it at the time!

Here is more info on the above post - my daughter had written this down for me on her I pad again after the exam. I'm just going to copy and paste what she put-

" the comprehension was about a new generation of cars that can talk to each other and have automatic things.it also talks about a racetrack in Nevada in America called thunder hill, it also talks about a car named Shelly that raced on the track. I thought it was hard and confusing. "

"The NVR section was called puzzles and there was a lot of rotating and flipping"

Time was very tight but she got everything answered. She had to guess some as she didn't know the answer.

Again I hope this is helpful! I am happy to ask her if anyone has any specific questions.

Great info and sharing, Doodlemum. The driverless car topic is cool. Nice to see an element of the practical applications of science and technology featuring in comprehension, although I can well imagine that the actual text, questions and vocabulary may have been challenging.

I found a Daily Mail article about it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... ceway.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

And another from Stanford: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/augu ... 81312.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We're in a different area, so I haven't been following your daughter's story, but I hope she got what she wanted.

Thanks Stroller - she did get the school she wants.

She had a look at the articles - she doesn't think either of these were the actual text, but it is definitely the same subject matter !!!

Thank you Doodlemum - this is very much appreciated as DS1 took the exams 4 years ago and DS2 is taking it this year. I know that the structure and question types has changed a great deal since then so its extremely helpful to have an idea as to what to expect especially if you are not taking the tutor route and working with your DC yourself.

Any input from parents of the DC that took the exam last year is so appreciated and if anyone can remember any of the information or words that came up please share.
Thanks in advance.

Thankyou all for your replies. KenR what a shame that you never got a response. I can only re-iterate what blue jay has said, anybody with any info would be grateful if you post any relevant input. I am knew to all of this and dd will be taking the tests this summer.