Pates marks

[Glos_Mum]

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[Burneth]

And Burneth, I do of course appreciate what you are saying. I hope I was not coming across as assuming my child would get anywhere near these scores on the actual day. I just wanted to use it as a bench-mark to see if we are on track. I have always been prepared for the fact that, he might just fall to pieces on the day - hence considering our local comprehensive as a real option.

I didn't think you were coming across that way at all Glos_Mum, I just wanted to point out to other readers that practice scores are only an indication and a child may well do better or worse on the day - indeed some children perform much better under pressure....like Orson said, whether you get a place or not really depends on how the most able children perform as that's where the benchmark is set.

Keep practising everybody - not long to go and you can celebrate with your DC by throwing all trace of verbal reasoning paperwork in the bin - never to be seen again!!

[magwich2]

I do not know exactly what marks DD got last year but she did get a place at Pates in the first 120. We were subsequently told by the Head that she was in the middle of that group and that as little as 8 marks separated them all. She did, however, leave out an entire section of the second paper (in a multiple choice paper - I have to say I was not very pleased with her!!!) and she knew that including this section she got at least 13 questions wrong.
I think her recollection is accurate as she also took the warwickshire 11+ and guessed her scores in this completely accurately. So it would seem possible to pass even after having made a number of errors. What DD did say was that the second Pates paper was more difficult than anything she had seen or done (even at her Prep school) before. We did not have her tutored but I do not think we would take that chance again - DS will have to get his lazy little nose to the grindstone next year!!

[mum3]

My two sons have got into Pates. They were not tutored. I practised the papers with them and was aiming to get 95%- 100% on the NFER Nelson papers but we did practise other verbal reasoning tests too just to get the hang of the questions. However, I do think that on the actual test the scores were probably much lower for everyone taking the exam. I am sure my second son said he left questions out (I nearly had a fit) and I know of other people over the years whose children have not finished the paper etc but still got a place. It is really difficult not to panic about the scores but I think you can only aim to practise as much as you can and then just hope for the best. It is a bit of a lottery really because it depends so much on all the other children taking the test at the same time, about which you have no control.

[cheltdad]

i would agree 95-100 to get Pates

[Orson]

As I have stressed before - 90% will get you into Pates.

Orson