Just wondering

[bulu]

Hi everyone, how's the 'How to Do' work going JLT?

We finished Letts Maths papers on a high, finally hitting the 70%s, despite silly mistakes such as 16+16=36. Argh! Resisted hitting him over the head with the complete works of Bond and showered him with praise...

Then bumped into local, very experienced tutor who said we should be aiming for 80%+ in maths papers as, in tutor's opinion, this equates to a 127 in the real thing, ie a secure pass but not a super selective one. Help! Anyone agree/disagree?

Good luck all.

[scarlett]

Hi Bulu...my son scored 70% in his maths last year ( raw scores ) and was given a 132. He is Decembr born. Have a look on page 5 of the Kent Forum and under raw scores...that is the thread where we all posted how our children scored last year.

I think try and aim for as high as you can...my son was getting 80-90 % in the run up so did drop by quite a bit.

[JLT]

Hi Bulu,

Have only done little bits on "how to do" book -but does seem a good way for us at the moment. Have just done a couple of questions from each subject to see which ones need most work. He genuinely seems to understand how to work out most of the subject types, just seems to struggle often to read the question properly and makes careless calculation errors! Did half a paper though yesterday and got 22/26 having been told to read the question twice before answering. I know this is going to slow him down a little bit but he was so thrilled with that mark , so hopefully this will make him concentrate more. We then got him to re-do the four he got wrong, without telling him where he went wrong. Needless to say on the second attempt he got them right! Looking at last years required scores, if he got 26 questions right on the day he'd be fine (March born). If last year's marks are a true indication of most years, it looks like they only need to get about 55% in each of the three subjects and they're going to pass. Thankfully living in East Kent we don't have to worry about super-selectives, DS wouldn't be doing the exam if we did!

[bulu]

Thanks Scarlett, that was an interesting read and very good of people to share their results. Your son did ever so well.

Next week we start the gl-assessment maths papers and I'm now aiming higher!

Another anecdotal - mum of bright child was completely taken aback by the drop in scores on the new maths papers. Scored 30% on paper 5 after a string of 80% successes on the first four.

I think we'll do papers 5-8 together as worksheets, not tests, to keep confidence up.

I really do pity parents who have to go through this two years on the trot!

[bulu]

Hi JLT, our posts crossed - good news for you!

I like the 'How to Do' book, it was one of first I bought.

I still find I spend an inordinate amount of time looking up methods, even at this late stage. I suppose I'm just not very good at maths!

Yesterday, for example, I went through several maths books looking for a simple formula to convert inches to metres for those pesky height questions. It took me a good while to work out the quickest way is to multiply by 0.025. Luckily son has a retentive memory for all these last-minute facts!

I suppose tutors just know this stuff...

[dani*]

Then bumped into local, very experienced tutor who said we should be aiming for 80%+ in maths papers as, in tutor's opinion, this equates to a 127 in the real thing, ie a secure pass but not a super selective one. Help! Anyone agree/disagree?
Good luck all.

It is better to get have a confident child who achieves 70% than push for the extra 10% and risk damaging confidence imho.

We used to single out the questions she found difficult and practice 2 a day followed revising of loads of stuff she was confident with, to keep ticking over. Always end on a high, especially now the test date is getting closer. .

As I said before imho there is no need to get 80% in the practice papers, it does not guarantee anything. Ideally a child would get 100% in all papers and finish with 20 mins to spare, but I doubt it will happen, regardless of how much practice goes in. And even so that would not mean that they do enough on the day. Also and as I said before DD is adamant that the real test was easier than the practice papers. Especially maths. I clearly remember her saying if only the practice papers were of that level, it would have made my summer a lot easier! (initially that woried me, because normally when DD says things are easy this is often not back up with the result, however on this occasion she did very well in maths)

Good Luck.

[bulu]

Thanks for that Dani.

My friend's daughter took the test last year too and passed. She also said the maths was easier than the familiarisation papers, with no algebra apart from one of those age questions. She also found it easier than the Year 6 maths SATs paper.

She averaged 60% over 9 maths papers, never achieving over 70% and is off to buy her grammar school uniform today!

Mind you, general consensus in the playground was that NVR was a stinker!

[mystery]

Bulu said: Then bumped into local, very experienced tutor who said we should be aiming for 80%+ in maths papers as, in tutor's opinion, this equates to a 127 in the real thing, ie a secure pass but not a super selective one. Help! Anyone agree/disagree?


80% in which maths papers equates to 127 in the real thing? Methinks local, very experienced tutor is not very good at statistics beyond 11+ level.

[mystery]

In the real Kent maths papers, do you really still get those stupid questions about converting inches to metres and vice versa? Just what exactly is that supposed to be a test of? The age of the tutor perhaps?

[xyzzy]

In the real Kent maths papers, do you really still get those stupid questions about converting inches to metres and vice versa? Just what exactly is that supposed to be a test of? The age of the tutor perhaps?

It's a way to slant 11+ results against immigrant families. That may not be the intent, but it will be the effect. A lot of verbal reasoning tests have the same subtle embedding of cultural knowledge, and that cultural knowledge is always --- amazingly! --- that of the white middle classes.