Easy Q's and Guesses

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Petitpois
Posts: 1440
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Petitpois »

Some posters have suggested that standard advice to DC was to fill in B or C, for all questions when time was running out.

Seems CEM have their bases covered when it comes to the blanket... guess.... take a stab at it strategy. It won't necessarily help, it seems.

I don't think the Q's this year were necessarily easy given this, and explains why so many have missed questions, not completed them all.

Also those rushing through are at much higher risk of missing the best / most appropriate answer.

sneaky sneaky tutor proofing
Amarstone
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Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:29 pm

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Amarstone »

In my opinion, this is only useful advice for the last 30seconds. It is amazing how many boxes can be shaded in in 30 seconds! If this advice is misinterpreted then there is a danger that students could stop too soon and start shading in random boxes when they could have applied thought and got a few more right! Guessing at random will only give a student a 25% change of being right. Multi-choice letters aren't necessarily evenly dispersed either.
Petitpois
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Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Petitpois »

25% - is a major major assumption. Change that assumption significantly and combine with deliberately limited time per question and you very quickly make guessing strategies pointless
sbarnes
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Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by sbarnes »

That brings back memories; we went for C's and D's for guesses
Petitpois
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Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Petitpois »

But if range is A-G for a particular question, that gives average success rate of guessing suddenly drops to 12.%5. Assuming 5 extra raw marks across the papers as a result, gives only a marginal impact on Standardised Score.

If your on the margins that might be the diff between and place in GS and a very good try.

Is it rational to do it yes? But with the following caveats

1)They have to work at their maximum optimal rate on each section and then, remember to stop and do the guessing thing.

2) Given timings of sections are often short and variable - that a tricky one to master for most 10 year olds.

In some circumstances doing this must have a significant positive impact on the final outcome, but I would suggest that in the Majority of cases the impact on final outcome will be relatively small.

I gave my DD the instruction to guess any she did not do, in the last minute, but she did not implement anyway, she carried out doing them at her fastest pace, but was more interested in trying to get them right, than complete them.

That said is it really a sensible advice to start guessing in the last minute of a 6 minute section? That is 15% of the time, allocated to random guesses,for that section. They don't give you a warning that there are only 30 seconds left
nervousmom
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Location: Warwickshire

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by nervousmom »

On the NVR my my daughter had 10 questions left when the 5 minute warning was given.

She quickly went through and put a guess for the remaining questions.

Then in the time left, she carried in working through and managed to answer a further 6, so only actually guessing 4, but at least making sure she did have an answer.
Petitpois
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Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Petitpois »

That sounds an ideal way to go nervousmom. I wish my DD would have listened, but I cannot fault her as we did not think to practice such an approach.

Next time for DD2, I think we will put it some practice doing it that very way. It was too much (and a lesson learned) to just expect DD1 to execute a similar approach Without practice.

We assumed that because it was multi choice it would always be just A-D (and a 25% guess success rate) but partly because none of the practice materials had anything different to that and Walsall did not throw up anything different!!!

If I have understood things rightly though, In some sections guessing gives you just a 10% chance of a correct guess, so whilst every little helps, CEM seem to have a strategy to minimise (but not eliminate) the potential impact of guessing.
Amarstone
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Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:29 pm

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Amarstone »

Petitpois wrote:T

If I have understood things rightly though, In some sections guessing gives you just a 10% chance of a correct guess, so whilst every little helps, CEM seem to have a strategy to minimise (but not eliminate) the potential impact of guessing.
I agree! And thank goodness for that!
Tolstoy
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:25 pm

Re: Easy Q's and Guesses

Post by Tolstoy »

Petitpois wrote:That sounds an ideal way to go nervousmom. I wish my DD would have listened, but I cannot fault her as we did not think to practice such an approach.

Next time for DD2, I think we will put it some practice doing it that very way. It was too much (and a lesson learned) to just expect DD1 to execute a similar approach Without practice.

We assumed that because it was multi choice it would always be just A-D (and a 25% guess success rate) but partly because none of the practice materials had anything different to that and Walsall did not throw up anything different!!!

If I have understood things rightly though, In some sections guessing gives you just a 10% chance of a correct guess, so whilst every little helps, CEM seem to have a strategy to minimise (but not eliminate) the potential impact of guessing.
The guess all remaining answers at the 1minute call was new to me until recently. With my previous sitter I took the keep working approach assuming one or two left unanswered at the end of a section would make little difference better to get one, possibly two guaranteed extra marks. However due to the ridiculous timing involved with CEM it is often not one or two that are left but almost half a section. When it comes to the borderline area where there are a bulk of marks getting one or two lucky guesses could edge DC into the yea rather than nay category. I agree that having short sharp sections negates some of this last minute guess work strategy but sensibly time tests would be a better way forward.
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