11 Plus Exams Forum

Is it normal for a child to have run out time and missed a chunk of Qs?? Did this happen to anyone else. My child was completing mocks etc well within the set times at home but seemed to have missed a fair few on the day....worried!

Any similar experiences?

If you read the many, many threads on here about the CEM style 11+, you will see that the main difficulty with CEM is the speed with which they require children to work - the test is designed to have more questions than would normally be answered in the time given - one of the skills for an applicant to learn is to know when to move on, if they are struggling to answer a question (it is also a skill to learn to "guess" an answer, in this case, so that at least something is marked down.)

The majority of children will have missed out questions - some will have missed them out as they went along, therefore getting to the end - others will have worked methodically through and run out of time, therefore missing a chunk of questions at the ned.

The key with CEM is to work very fast and as accurately as possible.

The real exam usually brings lower marks. I know of students who have been getting 100% every time who drop at least ten percent in the exams.

Which exam was this and was it one section or all of them? DG

Hey thanks for the responses.

I understand that the skill of speed is imperative but that's what we had been working on and that's what (in my mind) we had mastered. However, in this thread I'm looking for whether this was something other parents experienced as I cant retrospectively change anything - just wondering whether to expect the worst!

It might have been the nerves that kicked in. Surprisingly it was in 2 sections that have been his strongest - NVR and Maths....

Should also add that he didn't find anything difficult enough to move on or leave Qs out - he just simply didn't get to the end!! But as we practised at home, he managed to get a random guess in on the ones he had missed out, after the 1 min warning...

Which CEM? Finishing does not mean getting them all right. It could mean rushing and not reading the questions correctly. DG

Oops, apologies - it was the Slough Consortium. Several kids came out saying it was easy (!) and mine looked like he was about to pass out!! Speaking to other mums, their little ones seem to have got to the end and checked through. LOL.

He also missed a few in the Bucks one.

He wasn't heavily tutored, and we didn't pile on pressure so I just wondered whether this was something that was common or whether it was just an unfortunate case of nerves....

my daughter took the CEM exam last saturday. we expected that she will not finished all the Qs. overall, she wasnt able to answer 7 Qs from different set of test coz she run out of time. comprehension test are always her strongest, being an advance reader. she was able to finished all the Qs with 1 minute left to check her answer. she thinks that she did okay and did not find the exam difficult. it all depends on the result now.

OMGmum, we only did Bucks and mine wasn't heavily tutored. He missed one or two but couldn't really remember which sections. Think there was one guess on the Comprehension and am guessing there will have been some on the cloze as it was his least favourite type. He found it okay.

Hindsight has told me to ignore what happens on the day you just have to stick it out and wait for those cursed results

Goodluck.

Aww thanks all. I tried to ignore it for a while but its bothering me! I am going to quit thinking about it now. Its so much pressure for these poor kids - I probably didn't even know what day of the week it was when I was 10!

Good luck all xxxxx