11 Plus Exams Forum

I am sure we have had some posts on this topic in the past but I could not find when I went looking!

My DS2 is prone to silly mistakes. He knows the answers but puts opposites instead of similars and vice versa, encodes instead of decodes etc. Any hints or tips for this? My DS1 rarely made these daft errors so this is VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

It has to be dropping him down about 10% in Walsh papers. Is it a lack of concentration?

Ta all

the main thing to advise him is to check the example given. THe trouble is that familiarisation can breed laziness. they see the format and think, "oh, it's one of those..." but, as you say, similiars and opposites are often presented in teh same way. So it's a question of reminding him to check the example just to steer him in the right direction.

I have had pupils who make lots of silly mistakes, often because they jumped in too quickly without reading question properly. Usually explain that the question setters are sneaky and try to put in some questions to see if you can think that bit harder.

Marking the paper together and pointing out how much they would have got if they hadn't made the silly mistakes ( which they usually spot straight away for themselves) often works. It can be the difference between a pass and fail.

Also marking machine can;t give the benefit of the doubt like a class teacher often can