11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi, friends of mine use this site and after my experience yesterday i felt that i should let you all know incase if what happened to me can help any of you in the future.

My dd did not pass the kent test this year. When i got the scores and raw scores i was surprised at how badly she failed. I had expected a borderline pass or borderline fail but she failed all 3 individual papers by quite a large margin!

A little niggle at the back of my mind led me to call kent admissions and ask if i could see her test papers. I wasnt expecting to find much but did want a copy of her written work.

Yesterday, along with others viewing their dc's papers, i got to see her papers. A lady came over and explained that when parents come to view, the papers are then hand marked. My dd had marked the answer sheet boxes faintly and sometimes diagonally - the computer - optical reader - had not registered a large amount of her answers accross the 3 papers! They said it is the biggest range error since they started using the multiple choice tests!

Consequently my dd has had a substantial amount added to her scores accross the 3 papers!

They have said that "because of the unusually large difference" they will use the hand markers scores as my dd's "formal record" incase we want to appeal.

It was a bit of a shock as I hear that handmarking hardly ever turns up any errors, well heres one for the record that did

I'm sure it will help her confidence too.

When our school first went over to scanned registers (which work in teh same way as the test papers) the secretary was tearing her hair out as so many of teh teachers weren;t making the marks consistently enough.

Welcome to the forum!

Oh my goodness hmum, that's a huge difference. I'm sure that it will give your DD a huge boost and also make other parents with disappointing results query their DC's papers.

Well done to DD for passing the Medway test, I hope she gets the school she wants come allocation day next march.

inky x

Hmum - I'm so glad you posted this. It's definitely worth parents being aware that the electronic marking system is so unreliable.

I think this is a really important point hmum. When my daughter was sitting a computer scanned NVR paper a couple of years ago, the invigilator actually looked over her shoulder and told her to make her marks stronger, obviously for this very reason. Makes you wonder how often this happens?

Good that your dd now knows she did much better than she thought and good luck to her for allocation day.

Sorry to be pedantic here but surely it's not a computer error - it's an error in filling out the paper.

This is why I think it's important for schools/tutors to go through all of this with the children before the test. How on earth are they suppposed to know, without being told, exactly how to fill out the paper properly.

paulap wrote:Sorry to be pedantic here but surely it's not a computer error - it's an error in filling out the paper.
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Well there was a pencil problem as they were so sharp when my dd pressed harder the nib broke so she had to put hand up and ask for another, she did this a few times and then gave up and didnt press so hard. She just wanted to get on with the papers and not fuss with broken pencils or putting her hand up.

A few years ago the Tiffin Girl papers were remarked after it had been discovered that a dodgy OCR machine (one of several used for the marking) had mis-read the pencil marks.
I presume this was after an appeal discovered the error.
As a result of the remark additional places were offered to those who had been affected.
Computers are not perfect.
Regards
SVE

SunlampVexesEel wrote:
I presume this was after an appeal discovered the error.
As a result of the remark additional places were offered to those who had been affected.
Computers are not perfect.
SVE

Thank goodness someone decided to appeal, or the error may not have been discovered