DIY CEM - Which material to use?
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Re: DIY CEM - Which material to use?
Oh that I could. I recently tried to give my DS comprehensions he did back in the spring. He remembered everyone, verbally retold them and so refused to do them. Truthfully it would have been futile as he would have whizzed through them. Annoyingly if I put the same vocab questions to him out of context he would probably get most of them wrong plus try asking him where he last left his shoes or to hand in a form at school:roll:equilibro wrote:Bon dimanche à tous.Newbie121 wrote:Hi everyone, we have really slowly worked our way through the cgp books. Now need to get some new material .....
It must surely be a heads will roll mistake that there is not currently a Nobel Prize for acronyms but were there one, then with copious outpourings of modesty I would submit my personal creation KISMIE, keep it simple make it effective!
In the DIY 11+ context, with which I am successfully familiar, this means wherever possible not ploughing through an ever greater quantity of learning material but rather revisiting for a second, then a third, then a fourth etc time the quality material such as that which CGP produces and which, personally, I am currently using for DC2 to the exclusion of any other. Eschew timing for the first run through but use it for the repetitions, progressively ironing out any weaknesses which manifest themselves.
"But I already know all this stuff!", should be music to your ears. Familiarity fazes fear, n'est pas!
Re: DIY CEM - Which material to use?
Thought I would add some advice from a mum whose DD passed the Bucks CEM 11+ last year to try and help those tackling it next. Her maths and VR scores were strong and we used the CGP and First Past the Post materials. I am sure there are other good materials too but we didn't do any of the others as there wasn't time and I didn't want to overload her with everything.
In particular, we found the FPTP comprehension (classic literature) and the numerical reasoning books (both multi-part and short style) very useful. The multi-part NR books were the only ones we repeated but not in exactly the same way, e.g. rewrite similar style questions using different numbers / slightly different situations. This was very useful according to DD.
We also did some of the cloze books which were good for vocab building. DD says that you must have an excellent vocab because the reasoning / comprehension questions rely on this (kind of like a double layer test of knowledge and being able to apply it and figure things out quickly). So rather than repeat lots of books/papers, make cards of all words not known and retest some of those on a regular basis. Ditto for anything new from the CGP VR (CEM) book (which I thought was excellent).
We did do some NVR using the CGP/FPTP books but not too much and only in the hols in the run up to the test. DD found the NVR books and sections of papers quite easy so this was not too onerous and a good confidence booster after encountering tricky vocab in papers!
We didn't do much timed practice with DD as she was naturally quite quick (after realising early on you can't linger for ages on a question) - her issues were making silly mistakes so I focussed on trying to iron that out (or at least try and minimise it!). Best to tailor work to the child and what their strengths and weaknesses are, rather than feel you have to do everything.
Finally, but most importantly, encourage lots of reading. Spend time reading together and discuss any new vocab where possible, but don't make it a chore so it spoils the pleasure of curling up in bed with a good book.
Hope this helps and good luck.
In particular, we found the FPTP comprehension (classic literature) and the numerical reasoning books (both multi-part and short style) very useful. The multi-part NR books were the only ones we repeated but not in exactly the same way, e.g. rewrite similar style questions using different numbers / slightly different situations. This was very useful according to DD.
We also did some of the cloze books which were good for vocab building. DD says that you must have an excellent vocab because the reasoning / comprehension questions rely on this (kind of like a double layer test of knowledge and being able to apply it and figure things out quickly). So rather than repeat lots of books/papers, make cards of all words not known and retest some of those on a regular basis. Ditto for anything new from the CGP VR (CEM) book (which I thought was excellent).
We did do some NVR using the CGP/FPTP books but not too much and only in the hols in the run up to the test. DD found the NVR books and sections of papers quite easy so this was not too onerous and a good confidence booster after encountering tricky vocab in papers!
We didn't do much timed practice with DD as she was naturally quite quick (after realising early on you can't linger for ages on a question) - her issues were making silly mistakes so I focussed on trying to iron that out (or at least try and minimise it!). Best to tailor work to the child and what their strengths and weaknesses are, rather than feel you have to do everything.
Finally, but most importantly, encourage lots of reading. Spend time reading together and discuss any new vocab where possible, but don't make it a chore so it spoils the pleasure of curling up in bed with a good book.
Hope this helps and good luck.
