Kent Tests 2009

twinkles · Post by **twinkles** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:49 pm

My son said the NVR was hard. I know of others that didn't have time to finish all the questions. He said he answered all questions in each paper but guessed a few (however many a few is in his world!). I didn't ask too much about the maths as that is his worst subject and I didn't want him to tell me that it was really difficult and shatter what little hope I am clinging to that he might have just scrapped through - all he said was it was OK.

wickedwitch · Post by **wickedwitch** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:52 pm

DD said maths was different from mock paper last week and more problem solving stuff. She enjoyed NVR and VR and english. Said she didnt think she'd passed but everyone else in her 'group' felt the same way!! She is under less pressure now though as we are probably going to try for Cranbrook rather than the grammar schools as are in process of buying house in Sissinghurst.
She did say that the teachers were all very lovely and put them all at ease.

noma · Post by **noma** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:11 pm

We are from out of county and my DD found the Maths paper to be very different than the Mock test, she did say that not all the topics were covered. Hovever she was more upset with the NVR as they had 4 sections with 18 questions each with only 6 mins per section, we have been practising with 30 secs per question and she had to leave 1-2 questions in each section! Did anybody's DD or DS mention that?

dadofkent · Post by **dadofkent** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:18 pm

noma wrote:We are from out of county and my DD found the Maths paper to be very different than the Mock test, she did say that not all the topics were covered. Hovever she was more upset with the NVR as they had 4 sections with 18 questions each with only 6 mins per section, we have been practising with 30 secs per question and she had to leave 1-2 questions in each section! Did anybody's DD or DS mention that?

Just asked my DD. Says 9mins per section. Any other feedback?

Bexley Mum 2 · Post by **Bexley Mum 2** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:20 pm

Noma - my DS said there were 4 NVR sections, each with 18 questions to be done in nine minutes. This works out as 30 seconds per question, the same as Nfer practice papers and the mock tests.

noma · Post by **noma** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:31 pm

I am really nervous now as it was not only my daughter but also her friend who said it was 6 mins per section! will need to find out from a few other children in their class.

rosered100 · Post by **rosered100** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:56 pm

My DS says 9mins per section but even so he only finished 1 section completely & guessed the last 4 or 5!! q's of the other sections. Still now after a glass of wine, I think that would still give him a chance of nearly 80% if he got every other one right

, so still room for some errors - must look for the positives.
He thought maths was easy/OK/as expected but NVR & VR harder than he expected. Seems that everyone has different views on each paper so will just have to wait & see now.
We have 3 days between getting the results & putting in our CAF & its the week that he's away on a school trip, so we'll have to decide without his input - not that it would be down to him, I just like him to think it is (same as any 'decisions' my DH 'makes' , if you know what I mean ladies

)

Do check the timings though as DS thought the other classroom had longer breaks than his as they were on their break when he went on his, then his class was called back first on most papers. Not sure what would happen if the timings were wrong as you couldnt really extrapolate a score as they get harder as they go through in each section dont they or is it just me?
Off to get another glass now

noma · Post by **noma** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 12:19 am

I think timing was really a issue. My DS was the first class to come out..Will check and might report it if there is discrepancy in timings..

Desperate Dan · Post by **Desperate Dan** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:32 am

Our DD also found the NVR particularly hard. In one section she had to randomly guess 8 answers and apparently there were another 10 or so questions throughout the paper that she didn't really feel she had enough time to think about properly.

I am encouraged to hear that others found this paper difficult as this will (as has already been mentioned) affect the pass mark.

Glad to have it all over with though and roll on 19 October!

when the process will end · Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:29 am

My DS said that they were allowed 9 mins each. He feels that he is going to fail in NVR after all the hard work. I have tried unsuccessfully to convince him that if he found it difficult the chances are that other children may have found it difficult too.

I somehow feel a lot better after reading the observations on this forum. But we will only know the result on 19th October. A long wait..

Meanwhile can anybody advice whether it is necessary to pass in each subject or it is the total that matters.