11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi,

first time posting, fingers crossed

daughter will be taking the test in 2011 (east warwickshire) and we were looking to work through examples of what types of questions and styles to expect. Having read a number of other posts, there does not seem to be any practice papers available for this area. Can anyone suggest any other practice papers or books which they have found useful.

thanks
loota65

Hello new member

I would have a look at the Birmingham Forum, as their 11+ test is set by the same organisation, Durham CEM. However, I am led to believe that their exam format is slightly different. That being said, any relevant content about this type of exam will be found in the Birmingham Forum.

This link may also be of use to you; it summarises what has appeared in the Birmingham Kind Edwards Grammar School exams.

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 11&t=14423" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I was speaking to a lady whose son did VERY well in CEM test and has older children who have doen the test (old format), she confirmed what we all know the new test does what it says on the packet, it is designed to get the kids with the right type of brains into the grammar schools. All the children her son knew who were tutored said that the questions in the exam were nothing like the ones they had practised. (maybe that is a reflection of the tutor though?). My obvious question to her was "is it worth having your kids tutored then?" to which she answered that yes it is (her DS was not tutored though) if only to prepare them for doing an exam, having time restraints and the stress that the whole process causes. But they should be prepared when they go into the exam to be doing questions types that are quite unfamiliar to them,expect the unexpected and not be phased by it. She assured me that in her older child's year (the old test) there are children who were heavily tutored to pass the exam and have always struggled, but in her younger boy's class (the CEM year) this is not the case, obviously there will be the odd one who got lucky. In conclusion bright kids do well but they need to be prepared for the stress and time restraints of the exam and to expect the unexpected.

thanks optimist, thanks guest201 much appreciated

would you (or anyone else) know of any past papers/books that would be useful for rugby area tests (i'm aware that CEM do not provide any past material at all).

When would be a good time to start getting familiar with question types and styles, and is there an optimum number of hours a week to go through questions (for the process to be of any benefit)

oh , being new to this site, i see DD and DS a lot on posts. what do they stand for ?

loota65

DS and DD stand for

dearest / dreadful / darling Son or Daughter

and they are useful shorthand to prevent accidental use of your child's real name in a post.

Hello. What we found the best was the Bond series of books, which give a good preparation for the 11 plus and an ideal for a 'top up' on the school work. We did employ a private tutor as well and this proved to be very worth while and well worth the cost with our son advancing well in maths to a stage where he was doing the work with the tutor long before the school! He sat the 11 plus in October 2010 and we won't know till March but either way with the Bond books and the tutor his education and confidence has realy improved. the Bond books cover maths, english, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. The latter can be some what of a mine field when you first look at the questions with much head scratching but with practice it soon starts to become easier, well not for me but our son soon picked it up. Anyway all the best!

NVR - There is a useful download NVR program from this website. I used it with DD and it was actually pretty good. I could set DD onto it for short 10 min sets once a day etc.

Be very careful of VR - the traditional VR questions do not appear in Durham CEM exam. They use synonyms and antonyms, missing words or word parts which they describe as VR - and I call English. The old style VR codes and alphabet sequences do not appear in Durham CEM 11 plus.

Maths and English are good solid questions of standard skills that the brightest kids will have and the less able will not know. English tends to be comprehension with missing words. Maths has two parts, data handling (charts and tables, extracting information etc) and basic maths (add, multiply, divide and subtract presented in lots of different creative styles). Basically a very fair test IMO.

I did DIY but in hind sight would recommend getting a tutor.

google synonym, homonym and antonym games..

there are some brilliant ones online.

also helps with language skills overall.

thanks all, your comments have been very helpful

how many hours a week is the norm when hiring a tutor, thats if we've not left it to late and all the good ones are gone. Also costs are a big consideration too for us.

Hi - we used a tutor for both our children and found it a very positive experience. They went for one hour a week (expect to pay ~ £28 - £30 per hour) and then had homework, some of which we marked eg. Bond papers, and some of which was followed up at the next lesson. We sent them from the November through to the following October when they sat the exam. We found our tutor by asking parents with older children at the grammar schools who they'd used - I guess this is what most people do. Parents in the playground will almost certainly be clued up!
Good luck with it all.