QE Boys 2018 preparation

[abhijitc4u]

Hi,
My ds will be appearing 11+ in couple of years (just started Y4 in a prep school).

After being bit overwhelmed by all the threads and immense knowledge base available in this site on the topic, I have concluded Bonds papers don't reflect the complexity of QE exams.

Is Schoefields and Simms best along with GL papers?

Is there any way to find if QE will continue with the current 2 subject entrance test on english and mathematics?

Many thanks in advance for all the guidance and advice.

Regards

[Daogroupie]

Excellent conclusion!

In my opinion Bond is not suitable for any of the North London Selectives. I can only imagine how the poor students react when facing with three A4 pages of text to read in the real exams when they have been used to half an A5 page in Bond.

Bond is great for Bucks and Kent where there are lots of grammar school places to fill but not where places are keenly fought over such as North London.

QE used to have four different test papers. The first round to get the numbers down was NVR and VR (current Y10 were the last year of this format) in November followed by round two in January which was English and Maths.

This enabled students who were weaker in English to get into the school on the basis of their stronger marks in the other three subjects.

In 2012 they got rid of the first round (and the music places) in favour of the current format which is English and Maths, two papers one round, first past the post with only those with ranks of 210 and above able to apply to the school.

This means that English is now 50% of the total mark so even 100% in the Maths paper will not get you a place unless you can also do well in English.

I think that this format is working well for QE but they could soon introduce a first round to get rid of 90% of their candidates.

DAO and HBS have done this very effectively using CEM. DAO only had to mark 338 of the 1100 English and Maths papers last year and HBS will only be taking 300 dds through to the second round from the first round CEM of probably over 2000 applicants.

QE must surely be reaching capacity on their ability to host thousands of boys in one day for English and Maths papers.

Mill Hill County had to use eight after school slots for their non catchment exam after using every spare time slot on the Saturday.

I will be very interested to hear about the numbers for Latymer on Saturday now they are non-catchment as well. DG

[abhijitc4u]

Many thanks DG for your detailed reply, bit of history does give a lot of context.

Any advice on the relevant test papers for QE assuming no change in the format.

Although given the sheer number of candidates mentioned in your post, looks like they will have to introduce initial filtering just for ease of management if not anything else.

[abhijitc4u]

*** Moderators, can you please move this post to Region section ***

[abhijitc4u]

I was looking for a "suggestive" reading list for the GLS preparation which allows building of vocabulary, story writing and visualization. Any pointers?

[thisisnuts]

There is no story writing in the QE English paper. As the exam is set by GL, the GL practice papers, along with First Past The Post and Bond are good (Bond practice papers are much harder than the books). We found Letts and CGP practise papers a bit too easy, but these may be good as a soft intro to exam practice 6 months out.

It's always good to develop DS's vocabulary, especially if you are sitting other exams which do have a creative writing component. To that end, I'd make sure that there's a good selection of classics in the mix - Roald Dahl and earlier. Modern childrens books just don't have the same depth of vocabulary.

[Middlesexmum]

In my opinion Bond is not suitable for any of the North London Selectives. I can only imagine how the poor students react when facing with three A4 pages of text to read in the real exams when they have been used to half an A5 page in Bond.

Do you think Bond is good to use in the early stages of preparation as long as other materials are used later on?

[parentoftwo]

DS1 will be writing 11plus exams in the next few days. DS2 now in year 4.

I personally found bond as a great starter. They are the simplest but good to start with, then gradually moving on to the harder ones. DS1 was weak in NVR when I realized he hadn't done the bond NVR (for some reason left it half way) . Got him to do it as a daily practice which really helped him bring his NVR level. That was the time when I felt I was glad to have done the bond papers.

Schofield and sims definitely good. DS1 was doing it even when not preparing for 11 plus. For vocabulary , we didn't do anything earlier ..wish we did.

Learning from experience, for DS2, going to start with vocabulary and reading.

[Daogroupie]

NVR and VR are not required for QE. What other exams are you doing? DG

[parentoftwo]

My mistake. The NVR part was just a little experience I shared in general..should have read its for QE only.

DS writing QE and slough.