11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello,

I know I am rather late asking these questions. but we are new to all this and my child would like to answer the 11 + Exam for the SW Herts area in September. (My child is in Yr 5 now.) what format papers should he concentrate on?. He is doing the Bond Papers for now..

Verbal reasoning/Non Verbal/Comprehension/English/Math. I understand it is CEM Format. Could someone please give me a brief idea, as I am not very sure about it.



Thanks in advance.

I hope you are you looking at schools apart from SW Herts for which the Bond books will be useful. Unfortunately, the Bond VR will not prepare you for the a CEM VR exam.

If SW Herts is your primary focus, you need to spend the summer doing lots of CEM VR practice. We were in this position last year when the exam format changed, so it can be done!

Forget Bond. You need to be doing GL Maths papers and CGP and First past the post CEM Papers but only the English VR questions.

Have you registered for the exam? Applications have been open since May First. DG

Daogroupie wrote:Forget Bond. You need to be doing GL Maths papers and CGP and First past the post CEM Papers but only the English VR questions.

Letts 11+ books are also pretty good (but less challenging than First Past The Post if you need to build up to something harder) and they do CEM-format 11+ practice papers. They must be quite new, I didn't see them last year.

Agree re. Bond in principle but they have also recently published CEM-style practice books. Those that are CEM-style, have it clearly stated on the cover.

DG, when you said 'forget Bond', did you mean their 'old style' practice books/test papers or the CEM ones? We didn't use their CEM books so I don't know how useful they may be.

Yes, the Letts are good, but a trifle easy, their S and A are too straightforward but their shuffled sentences are the hardest I have found.

Ironically the Bond CEM are probably a bit too hard at this stage but worth having a go at in August as D day approaches. Don't forget, don't do the NVR and NR unless you are sitting Bucks CEM as well. DG

Thank you, it's always good to know which resources are most useful. Yes, I did have a feeling Letts might be best for the early stages of preparation.

We are done with 11+ now but at least I know what's worth suggesting to other parents.