Results thread 2011

[BoltBlue]

I can answer with regard to last year's (2009) and the weighting of NVR.

Last year NVR accounted for 10 minutes of the 90 minutes in the exam (11%), 15% of the available raw score but 31% of the maximum standardised score - so not quite a 1/3rd but not too far off.

Rose petal

That is shocking. Why didn't they inform candidates at the onset that NVR will constitute almost one third of the paper?

Luckily, NVR turned out my child's strongest subject. All the practice papers ended up in arguments on why one answer was better than another. My lesson was to work out the answer before marking an answer incorrect.

I had wrongly assumed all sections had an equal weighting. Is this a method to manpulate results?

[serendippyty]

That is shocking. Why didn't they inform candidates at the onset that NVR will constitute almost one third of the paper?

Luckily, NVR turned out my child's strongest subject. All the practice papers ended up in arguments on why one answer was better than another. My lesson was to work out the answer before marking an answer incorrect.

I had wrongly assumed all sections had an equal weighting. Is this a method to manpulate results?

I would guess (but this is pure speculation) that the general feeling is that NVR is the section that it is least easy to teach - ie it depends more on natural academic ability that taught/tutored ability. I know that there has been a drift within the 11+ to trying to find ways to weed out the naturally academic from those that have been tutored and that the feeling is that NVR is dependent on quick logical thought processes whereas more generalised maths and literacy can be taught.

So by weighting the marks in favour of that section it maybe goes in the favour of children who have not/can not be tutored and enables the most academic to gain places?

[Sassie'sDad]

serendippyty I think you are right. I also think that this section is claimed to be fairest on children who are not linguistically or culturally based in the UK.
You can get a flavour of the claims on this web site:
http://www.cemcentre.org/midyis/introduction" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BoltBlue]

I would guess (but this is pure speculation) that the general feeling is that NVR is the section that it is least easy to teach - ie it depends more on natural academic ability that taught/tutored ability. I know that there has been a drift within the 11+ to trying to find ways to weed out the naturally academic from those that have been tutored and that the feeling is that NVR is dependent on quick logical thought processes whereas more generalised maths and literacy can be taught.

I found it is all about practice. My child started with papers, scored 50%, he could not finish in time. Then with practice and doing 50 papers over 9 months , he scored 85%-90% as a norm. It was pure practice and time management. He learnt what to look for and the traps. This was his best section in the 11+ results. I think it is logic orientated, but you can definiately tutor NVR. There is less to learn that in English (vocabulary) and Maths!

[DadTutor]

Can someone please list the lowest scores to obtain a place for all the Grammars in Warwickshire 2011?

TIA

[legaraal]

Dadtutor, the automatic qualifying scores for all the Warks grammar schools for Sept 2011 entry were:-

KE Vi Stratford - 335
Stratford Girls - 335
Alcester Grammar - 329
Lawrence Sherriff - 303
Rugby High - 303
Ashlawn Selective - 301

[fed up]

But if you happen to live three miles from Rugby but just over the arbitrary county boundary the qualifying score for LSS was 335 and for RHS 325. Don't leave that particular vital piece of information out!

[DadTutor]

Dadtutor, the automatic qualifying scores for all the Warks grammar schools for Sept 2011 entry were:-

KE Vi Stratford - 335
Stratford Girls - 335
Alcester Grammar - 329
Lawrence Sherriff - 303
Rugby High - 303
Ashlawn Selective - 301

Thanks for the data. How does this compare to KE results in Birmingham, as the marks seemed to range from 217 to 232?

I thought they used same Durham tests

[legaraal]

I think that the KE Birmingham results were this year standardised in a different way from how they have been standardised in previous years. If you look at the data on the B'ham and Walsall forum for scores for the King Edwards schools in B'ham for years prior to this year, the last scores in for the various schools were about 320, i.e. analogous to the way the Warks scores were standardised this year (and previous years in Warks).

There is a discussion of this somewhere on the B'ham forum. I think the gist is that in B'ham for years prior to this year, and in Warks for the past few years and including this year, the scores have been standardised over three subject areas (broadly, English, Maths and non verbal). But this year, it seems, B'ham has standardised over just 2 subject areas (one being English, the other being maths plus non verbal).

When I got the breakdown of my daughter's scores for Warks 11 plus, they were broken down into three areas (verbal, maths, non verbal). But my breakdown of her scores for B'ham 11 plus was only broken down into 2 areas ( first area being "verbal reasoning and reading comprehension", second being "non verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning").

At the risk of possibly displaying my ignorance, I think that if you know what your child scored in the B'ham 11 plus, and you multiply that by 1.5, you would have an idea of what their equivalent score would have been in the Warks 11 plus, had the tests been standardised in the same way.

Hope this helps.

[Rugbymum]

The scores depend on the number of children being entered for the exams -the more children there are/the less places the school has got to offer means a higher score is required in order to qualify.