Please Post Your 2011 Test Results Here

[stroudydad]

All of this is very good but none of it answers the questions as to why pushkins dd's got such wildly different results... The cohort and age standardisation will have been the same.. And as they are published as SAS rather than rank the only possible answer can be some different way of scoring the papers... Thus the whole process is not a level playing field.!!

[hocuspocus]

HSFG 216 - 1st choice
Ribston 228 - 2nd choice

Form submitted and feeling very happy!

[Naulakha]

I'll try and answer Stroudydad's question (sorry- it takes a few paragraphs!)

This situation with the twins may at first seem paradoxical, but is entirely reasonable due to the differing cohorts taking the tests and the relative performance on each paper. Papers 1 and 2 are equally weighted and this can still happen.

Birthdate would have no effect here as they are twins, so I have not mentioned age standardisation, only test standardisation where raw scores are converted to SAS by ranking scores on each paper separately so that the 2 tests can be meaningfully compared as they are then seen as equivalent, even if of different difficulty.

Let's take 2 fictitious twins at 2 schools A and B (but I'll use the actual scores posted by Pushkin to show it is possible):

Child 1: School A Combined SAS: 267 Paper 1 SAS 128 Paper 2 139
School B: Combined SAS: 277 Paper 1 SAS 136 Paper 2 141

Child 2: School A Combined SAS: 261 Paper 1 SAS 131 Paper 2 130
School B Combined SAS 280 Paper 1 SAS 140 Paper 2 140

In the cohort taking the test for school A, child 1 scored more than child 2 on paper 2, but child 2 scored more highly on paper 1. However SAS is derived from RELATIVE performance, compared to others taking the test for school 1. Both were below the cut-off score of 141, so these SAS reflected their true raw scores achieved.

Now look at school B results,

Child 1: school B Combined SAS: 277 Paper 1 SAS 136 Paper 2 141

Child 2: school B Combined SAS 280 Paper 1 SAS 140 Paper 2 140

Both children's scores on both papers are higher for this school- this means they scored more highly RELATIVE to others taking the school B test. Their raw scores when considered by school B meant they were higher up in the ranking, presumably because there were slightly fewer other high scoring children taking the school B test (or sharing the raw scores with school B).

Child 1 on paper 2 scored the maximum SAS possible -141- this means in he may well have scored more highly than 141, had it been possible to calculate this. The effect of this truncating at 141 is that whereas she scored 9 points higher than his twin in school A tests, the difference in school B test was 1 point as it was not possible to have a score above 141.
This is a particularly unusual situation, as due to the relatively higher performance of child 2 in paper 1, he scores 140 (true score as below the cut-off) on this and also 140 in paper 2, where she is ranked much closer to the highest scorers in this cohort than she was for school A, and so scores 140 again.

This is why child B can have a higher combined SAS at school B than his twin, but a lower combined SAS at school A.

This situation would only happen with scores at the high cut-off (scores above 141) and below the low cut-off (scores below 69).

This was a long-winded way of saying the production of final SAS for each school will have been done according to the individual cohorts at each school and anomalies caused by truncating scores at the high/ low extremes of the bell curve such as the twins mentioned will be very rare and only evident amongst the highest and lowest scores, not near the borderline qualifiers. This would have no effect on who actually finally qualifies.

Brief summary: DCs scores cannot be meaningfully compared between schools but it does not mean that the process was not done fairly.

[info seeker]

Hi , our son's results were

Pates 120
STRS 257
Crypt 137

He missed 5 questions from the first test.


He will be going to Pates. We are very proud of the effort he has put in over the past months and would have been equally proud had he not secured a place.

We are glad its over now, and hope that all the "twilighters" get a place.

[stroudydad]

Naulakha, I fully agree with your reasoning, but in actual fact you have just proven the point that, albeit in a small number of cases, there is a problem with the way scores are standardised (in my opinion needlessly) that can give rise to uneven results.
The big irony with all the standardisation is of course that no account is taken of gender, which a good number of teachers will tell you has a greater effect than a few months in age.

[marymary]

SHS 216
Rib 217

What a close one!! Under achieved on the day but she passed.

[Tolstoy]

2 idle queries, what does SAS actually mean in this context? Standardised ?? Score???
and, Tolstoy, can you say what you meant by the test being easier for your DS1 cf DS2??? How do we know if it's easier or not??

I am basing it on the feedback we get on site as these children will be have tutored to a fairly decent standard.

When DS1 sat his feedback was pretty similar to everyone else on here. First test easier finished in time, second test harder and he missed the last Q. Baring in mind that he never had timing problems. He reported some tougher codes and z types on the second paper and he was very strong in both these areas.

DS2 finished first paper with 10 minutes to spare and second with 5 min and he was the slower of the two doing papers. He encountered no obvious problems.

Yes he ended up with a lower score but that will be down to weaknesses with vocab as everywhere else he was strong. The feedback on the site was pretty much the same most having no problems finishing.

So no proof just general feeling based on feedback.

[laner789]

Hi - just joined this site as I am utterly fascinated by the anxiety of everyone - or most of you - as I thought I was alone !!!

My daughter (2nd child- My son is now Yr 10 Marling) only really wants to go to SHS - a genuine ambition, so we were always very worried about managing expectations/outcomes, scored 235 for SHS and is 138th ranked. I telephoned SHS just to clarify what that meant (if I had known about this site, I wouldn't have bothered!) and was told by Admissions that typically up to 200 rank usually gets a place. The very lovely lady on the phone actually said "Wow, she did extremely well". They cannot of course guarantee a place for her, but she told me that so long as SHS was first choice, it would be extremely likely. One very excited child but how dreadful that no-one can be sure until March? What a system? Surely there must be another way?

[stroudydad]

Hi - just joined this site as I am utterly fascinated by the anxiety of everyone - or most of you - as I thought I was alone !!!

My daughter (2nd child- My son is now Yr 10 Marling) only really wants to go to SHS - a genuine ambition, so we were always very worried about managing expectations/outcomes, scored 235 for SHS and is 138th ranked. I telephoned SHS just to clarify what that meant (if I had known about this site, I wouldn't have bothered!) and was told by Admissions that typically up to 200 rank usually gets a place. The very lovely lady on the phone actually said "Wow, she did extremely well". They cannot of course guarantee a place for her, but she told me that so long as SHS was first choice, it would be extremely likely. One very excited child but how dreadful that no-one can be sure until March? What a system? Surely there must be another way?

If you read the other posts on here, you will see that 138 is pretty much as safe a place as you can get. I just had a quick count up and at least 12 separate people have posted on here tha they won't be taking their place at SHS. So effectively you are alreadyat 126 on the list... Sleep easy and well done to DD.