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Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:12 pm
by ginx
My dd said Bond maths papers were similar to some questions asked.

Otherwise, she said nearly all of the work we had done did not come up. I suppose it may be useful for SATS or something, but it does feel it was a waste of time!

Obviously there was comprehension and short and long maths questions and VR and NVR and clozes but nothing really helpful.

I've heard this before but not believed it.

She said having a broad vocab is the most important thing ... of course we didn't concentrate on vocab!

Oh dear!

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:15 pm
by ourmaminhavana
ginx, I'm sorry I'm not familiar with your county's exams or indeed the Bond papers, but when your DD says 'it didn't come up' does she mean the exact questions or the question types? The idea of working through any papers is really to familiarise your DC with the 'type' of questions that they may encounter.
Good luck to your DD!

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:51 pm
by ginx
Hi ourmaminhavana

For our area, we had used Bond, GL, and Susan Daughtrey, and the "type" of questions did not come up. Not sure I can say what those types are till exams are all over though. Waste of time practising those types!

I am sure some of the types came up. What I mean is, if your dc is able, I think it is possible to do the exam without much practice. We were told what would come up, I should have studied that closely.

And learned more vocab!

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 1:01 pm
by UmSusu
Ginx, the bond papers are good to build skills but the CEM exam is full of word problems and this is what children find difficulty adjusting to. You just have to keep a look out for the word problems or the Indie school papers can be suitable, especially if you take their questions and then add two or three further related questions. For example, one of the questions in the 2011 paper was about a magazine: you are told how many pages in the magazine and the measurements of a page. Then came a series of related questions such as area or perimeter of a page, area of the whole magazine, if x amount of wordmA an fit on a page how many words make up 25% of a page etc. I struggled to find them and made up a lot of my own.

On the other hand, I was helping a friend's son and gave him a series of mocks which luckily included at least 15-20 questions that were very similar to what came up - he still came out and told his parents that what we had practiced had no resemblance at all to what came up :roll: . I think sometimes they expect it be like the end of year assessments where they practice very similar questions and then the paper they do is laid out in the same way too.

I have tried dissecting everything DS has told me since Saturday, but in the end I am not any clearer about how he has done . We just need to wait it out.

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:07 pm
by ginx
UmSusu

It's too late! But useful for dd's sibling. Never used Indie papers?

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:17 pm
by Okanagan
I feel like ds must have the only child who was prepared without looking at a single Bond book/paper!

Being perverse I initially decided that as it was what everyone else was doing we'd try to ensure that we did something different and then when I realised how many indie papers I could download for free if I made the effort to search them out we mostly just concentrated on questions from those, plus a few selected CGP, Learning Together and Tutor Master materials, some mobile apps and online resources. I did eventually look at the Bond materials in our local bookshop, but decided that they didn't really add much - apart from questions about converting miles to kilometers, metres to lbs or ounces to grams (which I didn't think would be included anyway) - that we hadn't already covered.

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 4:17 pm
by UmSusu
Okanagon, I think it depends on the ability and level of your child at the starting point. The sample papers from independent schools are great but despite the variation in their levels of difficulty they are still pitched at a certain level. If you are starting early or the child is not yet at that level then graded papers are very useful.

I used them with with both my children and found them useful but only as part of a mix of papers. After a while the papers have a style that the children get used to - that is when it is time to move on to something different even if everyone else is still going for the 'More Fourth' and the 'Fifth' and the 'Sixth'

Whether my theory is going to pay off or not is another matter.......
(Sorry, I promised myself I would log off after Saturday but here I am poking my nose in on other forums - which can only mean that I have a pile of reading I should be doing and my addiction to this site is getting worse)

UmSusu

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:11 pm
by ginx
We used them because they were 10 minutes (good to start with), and for a first experience of VR and NVR.

My dd is not all that reliable, but she did say that the maths questions in the 11+ were similar to some Bond questions she did. Maybe she just meant nothing like any of the other papers!

I don't regret using them. I just wish I'd done more vocab in particular. There are a lot of papers around and online stuff, it's probably best to do a bit of everything. We did a bit of the resources we had, and I'm really grateful to users who recommended online papers, for us to download. There were some really good ones.

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:13 pm
by ginx
I'm so stupid.

I hadn't considered the fact many dp's on here probably have dc's at independent schools!

Sorry!

Re: Practice papers don't always help ...

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:30 pm
by Paramjeet
I have posted this message a few times based on my own personal experience; once I had taught my dc the broad fundamentals and used bond for this exercise as exampkes, we moved on and did as many different papers I could get hands on. These included papers from different indies, waterstones and on this site as well as 11+ site. The key was variety of examples, not to get too fixated with one particular style. I argued that how many different ways one could ask the same question! Not a lot really if the truth be known.

Good luck