maybe this year was hard exam?

[hermanmunster]

WP wrote an explanation of bell shaped curves and standardisation etc

Let's ignore age differences for the moment. If you take the score of a large number of children of the same age doing some test, and make a histogram of the number of children getting each score, you'd expect the histogram to approximate a bell-shaped curve (called the normal distribution) like this:

For different tests, you'd see distributions that had the same bell shape, but differed only in being moved left or right, or in being stretched sideways. In order to compare these, it's common to scale the marks to make these curves line up -- that is standardization. A common choice is an average of 100 and a spread so that the proportion of candidates in each band of scores looks like this:

For example, 34% of the population ends up with a score between 100 and 115.

Now suppose you do the above for a group of children of 10 years 1 month, and then do it separately for a group of children of 10 years 9 months. The younger children will tend to score lower, so in standardizing their marks the curve will have to be moved further to the right (to get the average at 100) than the curve for the older children will. (I believe the actual process is more complicated, based on determining an overall relationship between age and score, but the effect is much the same as standardizing each age group separately.)

Finally, the scores are truncated at the ends: everyone who would have got a standardized score of greater than 140 is reported as 141 (or 140), and everyone less than 70 is reported as 69 (or 70).

So the relationship between raw marks and standardized scores is obscure. 141 may not represent 100%, but it is a very high score, corresponding to the top 0.3% of the population.

[malibu]

Still struggle to understand the bell shaped thingy so have requested DD's raw scores which might help explain things.

Chocolatey Mum, didn't realise you could request raw scores, where do you get them from?

[Chocolatey Mum]

Hi Malibu.

I sent on e-mail to mail to:kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk requesting RAW scores but still haven't heard. They have probably been concentrating on replying to those needing scores.

I did the same a few years ago for my DS and they responded quite quickly.
Since next week is half term I won't be holding my breathe.

[Zeezeemum]

I sent an email to kent admissions for my DD scores and they included the RAW scores in the email albeit 3 days after I requested them.

[mystery]

Your school should give you the raw scores if you request them shouldn't it - well that's if you are in Kent, maybe it's different if you are out of county.

Look I really don't know what you are all waffling on about. If the paper was harder than usual then this will show up when you find out what the minimum and maximum raw score was to get a standardised score on the maths paper which was a pass (i.e. 119). This will be a higher raw score for an older child and a lower score for a younger child.

It will also be reflected in some way in the raw score needed to get 420 (again different from a young child and an old child). Judd publishes this info on its website every year, so once this info is available (anyone know when?) you can compare it on the Judd website with past years' raw scores. If the raw score needed to pass / get 420 was lower than any other year it was a harder paper than any other year, if it has gone up it was an easier paper than any other year.

In one way it makes very little difference as it is still the top 21% that pass (remaining 4% done through appeals).

I don't think the paper being harder or easier is the thing that needs to be worried about, ever. There has to be some fluctation in the level of difficulty of a paper from year to year, it's very diffficult to set one that is exactly the same degree of hardness / easiness as the year before.

The thing to worry about with the Kent maths is the difference that lots of tutoring and preparation can make. The paper itself to me tests both native ability in maths and taught skills. The only difference that tutoring, preparation etc makes is that it might be a slightly different top 21% that pass (ie. a slightly different bunch of students) from if no-one had prepared. So if the maths test was a true test of native ability the top 21% in ability would pass each time, but because it is a mix of ability and taught skills that is required, more taught skills could get you in to the top 21%.

Also the better prepared you are the less likely you are to flap in the exam. It's only a raw score of around 50% that is required to pass. That's an awful lot of questions you can get wrong and still pass, but if a child starts to flap because they come across questions they do not have the wherewithall to answer I think a level of panic can set in that is less likely to happen to some children in VR and NVR. So maybe it also is a test of unflappability.

S

[dadofkent]

Also the better prepared you are the less likely you are to flap in the exam. It's only a raw score of around 50% that is required to pass. That's an awful lot of questions you can get wrong and still pass,
S

Especially when you should get about 20% if you guess every answer.

[sherry_d]

Your school should give you the raw scores if you request them shouldn't it - well that's if you are in Kent, maybe it's different if you are out of county.

They dont Mystery, you can only get the raw score from KCC. What schools give is the breakdown of your child's scores out of 420. I really don't know why KCC doesn't include this in the letter to parents. The letter only mentions about being deemed suitable for high school or grammar school.

That's an awful lot of questions you can get wrong and still pass,

Used to think that too

I really don't think you can go by what the school expect to be a good enough score. Judd last year were expecting a lower pass mark but come 1 March the cut off was 415 and yet their predictions were much lower than that. On the other hand Tonbridge Grammar has a much lower cut off score than previous years.

[T12ACY]

I would think KCC don't give out the scores readily because it would open up the floodgates for people to question the result and appeal. For example if your DC sits the 11+ and you are quite naive then the outcome is 'high school', you might well just accept it. However if you had the scores and DC was a single point away it could make you question that they are so close it would be worth a punt at appeal, or at least consider taking it further.

Not all parents whose DC sit the test but fail go on to appeal, or even think about it. Perhaps KCC try and limit the potential for enquiries?!

OT about the Maths paper this year, everyone I speak to had a DC who failed it.... coincidence? Who knows? (maybe it's an East of the County thing...) Should also add that my research is limited to less than 10 parents

[kingsgen]

How do I know if the school use the raw score or standardised score to determine their admission especially school like Dartford Grammar school.

[mystery]

It has to be a coincidence that the small sample you know have all failed the maths T12ACY!! Approx 21% of entrants will still have passed, just as for each of the other two Kent papers! It just happens that the ones you know have failed maths ............... it could of course say something about the maths teaching in your school / area, or that the 21% who passed all lived in the West of Kent and had tutors!!! But there are plenty of children who do go to those grammars in the East of Kent aren't there - not just fish?