11 Plus Exams Forum

Can anyone shed some light on what to expect from the SGHS test? I know there are three papers in VR, English and Maths but would really appreciate a little more info if anyone here can point me in the right direction. Thank you in advance!

Last year was the first time they'd used this format. Without a bit more info as to what you want to know it's hard to know what to tell you.

However... First thing is younhave to opt IN unlike the boys' school where if you're in catchment you have to opt out if you don't want to do it. They all go on a Saturday morning towards the end of September and do all three tests with a short break in between. I think they're about 45 minutes a test. VR is (I think) about 80 questions, maths is about 40 and English something similar. There's no writing test in the English paper - a couple of passages to read and answer questions on and then some single muti-choice questions (such as "find the words that are spelt wrong in these sentences" etc). All are multiple choice, and you can get sample papers from the website.

You don't have long to wait for the results - a couple of weeks from memory. If they pass that's all they tell you - they want to avoid girls arriving and thinking they're "better" because they scored well. But if they fail they tell you how far away they were and what the pass mark was. They haven't really explained how the pass mark is set, but they've said it's set on the "in-catchment" girls (as it always used to be). If you pass and you're in-catchment then you're in. If you're out of catchment you have to see how far away the cut-off is (it's done on distance).

We were really worried when our daughter came out having only done something like 27 out of 40 maths questions - but in the end we heard 54% was the pass mark. Can't speak for other schools but Embsay (our local school) had a lot more passes this year than previously - ten girls sat the test and they all passed.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for that info, that's great. When you say that sample papers are on the website do you mean this one or the SGHS site?
Thanks again.

They're on the SGHS one (I think you have to buy the VR ones, but they tell you which to get). Clitheroe, LRGS, LGGS and (I think) Rawtenstall all use the same papers so you can probably get them from one of their websites.

This should tell you most stuff:

http://www.sghs.org.uk/wp-content/uploa ... t-2014.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, that's really helpful. Most appreciated.