11 Plus Exams Forum

1) I can't understand the question, please help.

Q.7 Amy spends 30% of her money on a book and saves 60%. If she had 20p left how much had she at first ?



2) DD never saw any S&S book before. She took 30 mins to complete the first test in book 5 and scored approx 83%. I am not sure if I should downgrade to book 4 or continue with book 5.
How much time should be allowed for book 5 tests (not the progress papers). I remember reading 45 mins on this forum. Is that for the progress paper ?

berks_mum wrote:1) I can't understand the question, please help.

Q.7 Amy spends 30% of her money on a book and saves 60%. If she had 20p left how much had she at first ?

Badly worded, as they oftena are! But to me it means
30% spent
60% saved (I.e also taken away and put somewhere else)
10% leftover equals 20p

So 20p equals 10% of what she originally had, so 100% must be £2.00, does that make sense?



2) DD never saw any S&S book before. She took 30 mins to complete the first test in book 5 and scored approx 83%. I am not sure if I should downgrade to book 4 or continue with book 5.
How much time should be allowed for book 5 tests (not the progress papers). I remember reading 45 mins on this forum. Is that for the progress paper ?

We do these at our primary school, yes, 45 mins fine and 83% good! I certainly wouldn't go down a book and might consider going up to challenge more if consistent that high mark and 30 mins, but two things, book 5 actually harder than 6, 6 being easy secondary as opposed to challenging primary and also, the tests do get harder as you progress through the book you are on

Thanks Yamin. This was what I feared, the first test may be easy but the next tests may be harder and could knock her confidence down. Do you think I should let her do a couple of them more and if she scores badly, takes lot of time or gets reluctant to do them then understand it is time to downgrade to 4 ?

Hmmmm. You see, our (very experienced) teacher says that they are meant to be challenging and if they are getting them all right then it's too easy. They do need to have some they struggle with. With one of my sons we sit together and work through them. In fact, he mainly works them out himself but if left on his own does make mistakes. I figure he learns more by my being there to teach him through the mistakes. This can cause him to become defensive, so we make it 'malteser maths' and we have a malteser after each question done in a positive way (which, with choc bribe, is usually all of them!)

Ooh, I also do them all first when he is at school, so that when we work through them I am not having to read and understand the question myself. I quite enjoy it actually!

Yamin, very good tips. I discovered that when I sit with my DCs to watch TV they are very happy. Same goes with studies I suppose. DD says, just sit and listen what I am doing, don't tell me the answer I will work myself. Very often, it is not possible to sit with her though. Reading is the only time when she wants full privacy.

Doing the questions before them is a good idea. We usually look into it if she is stuck/goes wrong which is time consuming. If OH is there it's good but my brain works slower so DD says tell me the answer and I will work backwards to find the logic. I often have to do this with NVR because my NVR skills aren't good. I think, both bottom-up and top-down methods work well.

Just realised I have to buy the answer booklet separately. Book costs £2.95 and answer cost £4.95. Somebody is making good money.

berks_mum wrote:Just realised I have to buy the answer booklet separately. Book costs £2.95 and answer cost £4.95. Somebody is making good money.

They certainly are! I don't think you need the answer book, 95% are simple for an adult! it's just your method you need to have clear in your head! and that's not in the answer book. Any you are stuck on, put them here as I hae answers to them all, twice over! (Twins)

Hmm...ds1 spent five minutes on the internet about a year ago and found a site that had all the answers from the answer book scanned in. It was actually run by S&S - we printed them out - I have a feeling they closed the site just before the 11+ was taken in Sept - might be worth a few minutes perusal?!

Berks_Mum which Schofield and SIMs book is this. Need to work with DD on Maths Numerical Reasoning as it appears to be her weak area.

Many thanks in advance for your response