New style Bucks test - early advice on preparation

[Booklady]

Have to say - this terrifies me - again!! I went through the whole process with my older daughter - who is now happily at BHS in Year 8 and doing very well. Younger DD is in Year 4 - and - I thought I knew what we were doing (which is nothing other than reading / playing games etc right now!!) - and then we read this! One blessing for us is that she will be the second year doing it - I really feel for those of you who have DC's sitting in 2013. We will learn from your experiences!

I presume the schools will run the same sort of familiarisation process as they always have? When will they do this? The earlier the better I guess to glean any information!

Is the 2 x 45min papers the same as Birmingham now have? Seems a lot to fit into 90mins!!

Good luck all with this process!

[tvj]

Thank you very much, Jay. I knew more about this than I have been able to post, and it is very helpful to finally have confirmation of the new test provider. I was about to start surfing each of the GS websites daily for more information, but you have saved me the trouble of doing so.

You are welcome Sally. The posts from you, Patricia and other members has been our guide for the past few months. My DS is in year 5 and preparing for the the 2013 exams. started DIY following Patricia's guidelines focusing on GL assessment model. Now suddenly feeling that we are in no mans land . We simply have to switch off and start over again.

The information available in this forum is simply great. For me this forum is like the 'Google' of grammar school information. Thank you to all for sharing information, tips and guidance for everyone's benefit.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year.

I can surely say that it is going to be an interesting and may be a bit challenging year for the kids and parents preparing for 2013 Bucks exams.

Regards

Jay

[patricia]

Hi tvj

Firstly thank you for your kind words.

I will today remove the current DIY thread, tidy it up and relocate to the verbal reasoning section.

I will also start a new DIY thread at some point today, with known facts and some starter material.

Patricia

[tvj]

Hi tvj

Firstly thank you for your kind words.

I will today remove the current DIY thread, tidy it up and relocate to the verbal reasoning section.

I will also start a new DIY thread at some point today, with known facts and some starter material.

Patricia

Hello Patricia,

Thank you so much. This will be a huge new years gift

Appreciate your help.

Regards

Jay

[KenR]

Is the 2 x 45min papers the same as Birmingham now have? Seems a lot to fit into 90mins!!

Not sure if Bucks parents are aware, but if it's the same as B/ham then each of the sub-sections in each paper are timed and there is no going back to previous uncompleted sections(unlike with GI). The times also exclude any external times (e.g to play audio passages or instructions) - so this is a full 45 mins of actual work by each candidate - The session time to complete each paper will be longer. The tactics for section completion need to change.

[kittymum]

Thanks to everybody for this information. My eldest child is in year 5 at the moment so feel an impending sense of panic about the whole thing - whilst I think the change is a good thing I guess at least we understood the old verbal reasoning test!!

I don't know about anybody else but I just feel totally confused about what to do ... I've read all the posts from Ken, Sally Anne, Patricia etc which are great but I just don't know where to start with it all!!! I feel a bit like my heads going to explode from all the information - help!!!

[khanj010]

Patricia has posted some facts on the diy/preparation advice buckinghamshire
It is very helpfulful.
I know how you are feeling
just hope we can get help from each other and get through this, its to much change for us all to handle this early.

[Bad Dad]

About 5 years ago, I was in exactly the same position as you guys. I had been preparing my eldest for NFER style exam in Warwickshire when it came out they were switching to CEM with the same amount of notice that you have got this time in Bucks. Since then I have had 2 more children go through the CEM exam. My opinion is that the CEM test is much better. Preparing for it will be far more helpful to your child's all round education than the NFER 21 types. As a DIY parent, it may also give you an advantage. The experience in Warwickshire was that many tutors and also the private schools were set in the way they had been successfully working for years and they got caught on the hop. Some private school children I know had a real shock when the exam turned out to be nothing like what they had been prepared for. As a parent, I think you can be more agile about changing your preparation in this first year, before the professionals get their acts in gear. If you are using a tutor, you need to ask them what their plans are for changing their approach, otherwise you could be wasting your money. The chances are they may not use this site, and you could find you are more clued up than they are!
The biggest danger for children unprepared for this test is that they may be very capable at school and being confronted with something they can't do is a new and highly unsettling experience. The CEM test often contains a really hard section where most of the questions are beyond the vast majority of children. This year in Warwickshire the maths was particularly hard. Our test is opt in and generally only taken by very able children, and yet the average raw score in the maths was only 25%! Children need to be very resilient and keep going to get every mark possible on a difficult section, and then put it behind them and immediately re-focus on the next section. They are not competing against the paper, they are competing against the other children. If a section is particularly "hard" in terms of getting a high proportion of questions right, it doesn't mean it is harder in the sense of scoring more than others do. Myself, I find the thought of a paper where you need to get 90% to beat the others far more worrying. A couple of silly slips and you've had it. With CEM, mistakes are less crucial as long as your ability shines through over all.
I agree that it is nonsense to say CEM is "tutor proof" but on a scale it is far more towards the "tutor resistant" end than NFER. Personally, I found it impossible to force vocabulary into my children's heads, although many people have good suggestions on how you can help. Two of my children are enthusiastic readers and they did well on the "VR" section (actually better described as "English"). One of my children does not like reading and he did badly. I am not sure how much I could have mitigated this in the preparation. I can't stand over him, forcing him to read "Treasure Island". (It appears all 3 of my children have got through as they all had strengths in enough areas, although I am nervously awaiting 1st March for confirmation on my youngest this year as her score is not as comfortable as I would like)
For the Maths and NVR sections, I agree with what everyone else has said about using as wide a variety as possible. In Warwickshire, sometimes the NVR has been very unusual and like nothing that appears in Bond etc. However, in recent years it seems to have been a bit more conventional. The maths usually contains a section of short questions and a section of longer questions which are like mini comprehensions. The difficulty is in interpreting what is written to understand what calculations you are being asked to make. I agree Schofield and Simms is good for the shorter questions. For the longer questions, it is worth looking at private school websites as many have sample admissions papers free to download which have questions in this style.

I presume the schools will run the same sort of familiarisation process as they always have? When will they do this? The earlier the better I guess to glean any information!

Unless Bucks is going to be different, CEM have no past papers and don't do familiarisation. All you get is a very paltry set of sample questions (2 or 3 each of Maths, VR and NVR) sent to you in the post 2 weeks before the exam date. These show the format of the paper but are not representative of the level of difficulty. The latest Warwickshire example sheet is here: http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/corp ... ns2011.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good luck with it all! I sympathise with you guinea pigs - I've been there!

[heartmum]

Thank you 'Bad Dad' for your advice ... being neither a teacher or a tutor, just a parent trying to help my DC any help/advice along this new path is met with such gratitude x x x

Now all I need is a list of all private schools, who have downloadable practice tests ... a list of suitable practice materials I can buy ... cloze practice papers ... knowledge of advanced maths ... an understanding of shapes/patterns ... a greater knowledge of synonyms and antonyms than I previously had for the old VR tests ... and I'm there

.... just when you think you're prepared something comes along and changes the game completely!!!

[Booklady]

Thanks BadDad - this is great advice - much appreciated - and has made me feel much better!

I agree wholeheartedly that change was /is needed - I guess I am just feeling out of water as we knew what we were playing with before!! But a score of 95% was required this year for a Sept born child to get 121! That is ridiculous - 1 silly mistake and you are out!!

I have started to dig some stuff out which I was given for my older daughter but did not use in the end - maths and nvr were not needed! So these will be a useful start! Younger DD has also moved in Sept to a new school - we went private in the end for her - and they tend to get them well ahead of the national curriculum - which will presumably help!!

Its all a learning process I guess - and I do agree that the new process should allow natural talent to shine more - however it also potentially places more reliance on good school teaching also!!