11 Plus Exams Forum

The papers are now on the CSSE website. I'm relieved as I thought they'd be a lot worse. Maybe I'll be able to sleep at night now haha. I'm probably being blind but I can't spot non-VR on the maths paper. Unless the a=1 etc questions are classed as non-VR.

What's everyone's opinion on the papers?

Hope everyone's preparation is going much better than ours!

The "dice nets" Q is the NVR, I think.

The creative writing is much nicer than I expected, I did think it would be one factual account of some sort and one imaginative one so that is quite nice. Glad it isn't too much of the marks. The comprehension and the maths looks pretty much the same. I think, if the proportions stay the same, it will be much better having a smaller weighting to the VR section.

I think I am happy

Maths looks very easy and creative writing is easy too.
Comprehension is as hard as the old 11+ which in my opinion is not Level 5, more like level 6/7

Can someone explain how I can explain the only difficult maths question to ds...number 16, I just know I will waffle on and confuse him, when really it us v easy, but a maths teacher I am not! Thank you.

Toblemory is a rotten old flannel of an old fashioned story imo, and the whole story is quite adult and macabre..they plot to kill the talking cat because it knows the master of the house is having an affair! The questions seem v straight forward, but the old fashioned language would put my ds off. Not our area thankfully, I just poach resources.

I thought that the Maths questions seemed a lot easier than past CSSE maths papers. I believe this is deceptive and I wouldn't be surprised if the actual paper is orders of magnitude more difficult than the sample paper. The comprehension looks about the same level of difficulty as previous years. The creative writing tasks seem simple enough.

These papers seem to be more in the CEM style of questions.

Fortunately dd2 will only be doing this in 2016 so I have time to find out what the real papers are like and the CSSE have time to completely change the exam again before she does it!

The maths paper seems to be a test of speed as much as difficulty. Has anyone had their DC try it yet?
With the exception of the averages and the algebra which he has not covered, my year 4 could I think do most of it, given enough time, but certainly not in 60 minutes.

Today is the day.
After lunch DS and I are going to my office and he is going to sit the entire thing (away from the distraction of sister and cats.)
This experiment is going to cost me a couple of packets of Pokemon cards (one for taking the test and one for "doing my best.")
Any idea what sort of result I should be looking for 8 months before the big day?

push-pull-mum wrote:Today is the day.
After lunch DS and I are going to my office and he is going to sit the entire thing (away from the distraction of sister and cats.)
This experiment is going to cost me a couple of packets of Pokemon cards (one for taking the test and one for "doing my best.")
Any idea what sort of result I should be looking for 8 months before the big day?

It's difficult to predict what you'll get as each child is at a different stage of their preparation and most importantly, has different motivations.

Before even attempting to sit any of these papers, it may be useful to have a long, hard think and oneself what one wants or hopes to achieve from sitting a mock?

Unfortunately, as each of our DC's are individuals, it's hard to guesstimate say how they'll react in terms of "number" results (ie the marks) or the emotional results (ie panic, deflation, confidence boost).

Has your DS sat strictly-timed CSSE papers before today?

Out of curiosity, three of us sat the maths paper this pm (y 7 and 8 at GS plus mum). All managed to finish in time... Y 7 with 4 mins to go. All felt exhausted at the end!

Results
58/60 in 44 mins (mum)
Mistakes: 10c, did not read question and wrote answer as a number not letter. 17a worked out the correct answer wrote the wrong answer in box!

Y8 55/60 in 53 mins
Mistakes: writing fish,bird etc highest to lowest, 10c again, and 3 silly calculation/scribing errors.

Y7 53/60 in 56mins
Mistake: section 5 (3wrong) wrote whole answer, rather than just the question mark number eg. 5e ?=131 rather than 3 (3 silly errors!)
10c again!
13b wrote answer as 2.92m rather than 292cm
17b forgot BIDMAS

We all found section 21 time consuming and challenging. Lots of easy question after though. So if too is long spent calculating/estimating 6x9x19x8 you will miss lots of 'in the bag' easy marks.

I would recommend all parents to have a go themselves. That is the best way you will help your child and make you more understanding of the time pressures and how easy it is to make silly errors.

Hope this helps all 2014 sitters.