11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi Team,

A Few weeks ago, while doing Multiple Choice (MC) English papers i.e. GL, BOND mc papers, I was advising my DS to take it easy, slow down, and read comprehensions thoroughly. This was very effective and managed to improve his English score.

Now comes the dillema with CEM type comprehenssions, like using the FPTP BK1 and BK 2 Comprehensions, with 12 minutes per paper, now I have to ask him to speed up and rush through the comprehensions and questions.

This means he has to forget everything I previously taught him re: slowing down etc ...

The danger with this is he will revert back to rushing through his comprehensions and start making mistakes when we go back to doing the (MC) English paper (50mins ones).

So, the question for the experts (non experts too), how do you approach this dillema?

How do you train your dragons to switch modes, when attempting CEM vs standard MC papers?

But then again for QE, there are two comprehensions, is it fair to assume they will still need to do the comprehensions in the standard MC paper in 12 minutes?

Please help..
All comments, advice welcome

Thanks and Warm Regards,

motion

Motion can I just ask how long your DC is taking to do a FPTP comprehension? The reason I ask is that my DS takes a good part of the time allowed to read the passage, well past the halftime mark, but still manages to answer all the questions.

DS takes 6 minutes reading the passage and 7 minutes doing the comprehension. First attempt on first paper, he missed 3 hence got 12/15, he had to guess one (and guessed wrong)

Personally I would be very happy with those marks. If he is accurate not finishing won't make a huge difference surely. Mind you I am no expert at CEM and with our timescales my expectations have to be realistic in the extreme.

I recently pitched the 11 year old against the ten year old in a comprehension race, assuming that the eleven year old would win, even though he is a physically slow reader. I was right, the practice he has had over school the last year on learning inference and reading between the lines, a greater development of empathy and mature reading, stood in his favour and although he guessed two at the end he only got one wrong. The ten year old was very quick, but made three mistakes, two of which he corrected with a quick glance and a sigh.
I would opt for teaching to read carefully and systematically, as this is the proper and useful way of teaching and learning comprehension, rushing through it goes against the grain and may form bad habits. His accuracy will ensure a good mark, but you can just tell him to not worry about getting stuck and move on after thigh seconds.
Obviously the test was not fair, but I haven't got twins to experiment on.

Thanks.

southbucks3 wrote: ..rushing through it goes against the grain and may form bad habits. .

But is this not what CEM is doing to kids (or atleast encouraging this habit indirectly)?

motion

Yes! Not doing comps properly and not checkingvmaths answers as no time to do so. I can only suppose they would suggest the children need only encounter such a situation two or three times in their life (for bucks, I include practice test and familiarisation) so it will not harm their long term strategy. Unfortunately with a year of practice at speeding up, this may not be the case?

You have made me laugh at a serious statement in your quote....how very dare you cut and paste me so!

Don't forget that it's not uncommon for Durham CEM to include the comprehension passage and reading component in the 1st paper but the comprehension questions in paper 2. ie candidates have to answer questions without having the passage in front of them!

I always advise parents to be prepared for the unexpected.

When they included this in the B/Ham CEM papers a few years ago there were a lots of tears - many children couldn't remember anything about the passage.

Practice as much variety as possible

KenR wrote:Don't forget that it's not uncommon for Durham CEM to include the comprehension passage and reading component in the 1st paper but the comprehension questions in paper 2. ie candidates have to answer questions without having the passage in front of them!

That's sent shivers down my spine Ken!.......Dd will be doing something new tonight then

It would seem this test is the cause of lots of childhood tears at some point or even many points in the process, yet we all put our little ones through it. Over on the child genius tv programme thread, we berate parents who subject their children to stress and watch in horror as children's tears flow, are we any different? Perhaps we should all shout a united, "no more!"