Magic 216

Eleven Plus (11+) in Gloucestershire (Glos)

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

11 Plus Platform - Online Practice Makes Perfect - Try Now
Ruby Tuesday
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:24 pm

Magic 216

Post by Ruby Tuesday »

Does anyone know quite how the magic score of 216 is reached in Gloucestershire. Sounds like a very random number?
I also have no idea what standardisation means with respect to this (grammar schools were much easier to get into in my day! :? )
Milla
Posts: 2556
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:25 pm

Post by Milla »

216???
what fresh **** is this?
In the old days (ie 2 years ago) a pass rate of 105 per paper had to be reached making a joint minimum mark to be considered eligible of 210. Then they scrapped the passing each paper bit and said it had to be a joint score of 210, made up of whatever. (Quite how they go for 105 from a paper comprising 80-85 marks is a matter which has baffled better brains than mine.) Last year for Denmark Rd the lowest score was, indeed 210, whereas for Tommy's it was 220. Creeping up nastily, there.
Don't know about the other grammars.
Ruby Tuesday
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:24 pm

Post by Ruby Tuesday »

Didnt mean to scare anyone, sorry :oops:
I believe in Gloucester schools its 210 but Stroud ones its 216 for some unknown reason... like life isn't hard enough.
But surely someone must know how this is compiled because like you say if you add up full marks for each paper its still not enough??
Is there any fountain of infinite knowledge that can explain this..Stephen Hawking, Chris Tarrant... The Wizard Of Oz?????
EmeraldE
Posts: 431
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 5:56 pm

Post by EmeraldE »

Hi Ruby.
YOu have hit on the magic....what the ****??? How can you get a score of 220 from 160 questions each worth one mark!!

It is all down to this standardisation business.
Scores obtained from the test sheets are known as raw scores (160 being maximum). A computer program then makes mathematical adjustments using the standardization criteria. The final score is known as the standardized score. This is the score that parents become aware of and is used in the selection process. This standardized score is NOT a score out of 160. ( I.e. two papers of 80 marks each.)

Usually the top score obtainable is 141, and the pass mark is variable from year to year and depends on how well the cohort do in the test. I would have though that Marling as easier to get a pass mark for than Tommies and Crypt..but I could be wrong! (no idea aboout the girls grammars, sorry)

The criteria used to obtain these standardised scores is the subject of some debate. We do know that age is one factor, younger students getting more 'points' due to the fact they are younger.

I hope that helps? I am no expert but that is my understanding of the situation.
gloucestermum
Posts: 739
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:14 pm
Location: Gloucester

Post by gloucestermum »

This is from the Kent forum from Kenr-the process is extremely complicated!!

GM

KenR wrote:There are actually 2 ways to perform Age Standardisations:

1. Performing a Age Standardisation against the candidate cohort - this will give a typical profile with a mean of 100 and the expected statistical Std deviations.

2. Calculating an Age Standardisation where the test paper has been calibatrated previously against a statistical National sample. In this case because only bright children tend to enter the tests the mean is skewed to the right and is well above 100.

NFER use a technique calling trialling to Age Standardise particular test papers against a National sample.

Most 11+ exams use the former method but Kent 11+ exams uses the latter method. Bucks uses a bespoke hybrid approach which results in a test mean (average) of about 111-112 rather than 100.

One of the anomalies of the national sample approach to Age Standardisation is that quite a few candidates achieve the max Age Standardised score of 140 or 141.

You should bear in mind that this doesn't mean that all candidates who are allocated a score of 140 achieve the same raw score (or anything like)

To quote from the QCA report on Key Stage 2 tests (which Age Standarised tables are available):-
Very low and very high age standardised scores are printed in the tables as ***. This means that they would be below 70 or above 140, but cannot be calculated with the necessary degree of statistical reliability. If an exact score is needed, for example, to calculate an average for the class, 69 or 141 should be used for these pupils.



The same applies to 11+ Age Standardisation, so if 2 candidates each scored 140 this doesn't means that they both scored the same, it just means that they scored so highly they were not able to accurately calculate an age standardised score so they just allocated 140 as the highest avalable. So it's perfectly possible in theory that two children of the same age achieving raw scores of say 75/80 or 80/80 respectively could each get a standardised score of 140! Of course this would depend of the degree of difficulty of the particular test.


Hope this clarifies matters.
2togo
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:50 pm

Post by 2togo »

Ruby

Re Standardisation

On the Birmingham site here are lots of Qs about this that are answered really brilliantly by KenR and fm, amongst others. Bham has 3 papers so the total raw score & total standardised score numbers are different but the principles are, I guess, the same. Lot to do with standard deviation and other things I thought I never have to hear about again after leaving school...

Worrying for you all that how ever these numbers are arrived at, they seem to be getting higher. :cry: :cry: Hope that's not a sign of things to come across the whole country but I rather fear it is...
Milla
Posts: 2556
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:25 pm

Post by Milla »

DS2 brought home the secondary school book thing today so see what you mean about 216 - hadn't known this before. All very Kafka goes to Wonderland, isn't it??
alisonc
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:59 pm

Post by alisonc »

Ref Denmark Rd and lowest accepted score of 210 (the exact pass mark). If you read the Secondary School Information Booklet 2010-2011, it states entrants for Sept 2009 was 116 places, but 159 put as 1st place, surely that means at least 159 passed. I find it strange that even 116th on the list (admission is by top score then lower) leaves 43 who passed without a place. If the lowest score accepted was 210 then there must have been at least 44 with this score. Who decides gets the place, or is that really true that the lowest entrant was actually 210? I'm just entrigued. Any have any answers?
Milla
Posts: 2556
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:25 pm

Post by Milla »

yes, alisonc, very strange indeed. I hadn't thought that (incidentally, as sticky shows, DRd also secured the higher of the 2 comparative passes betw STR and DRd.)
Anyone - Capers???? - any thoughts to straighten out this problem??
gloucestermum
Posts: 739
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:14 pm
Location: Gloucester

Post by gloucestermum »

I think some parents will put a grammar school as their first choice even though their child did not achieve the pass mark-they may intend on appealing in the future for example and think that this would help.Obviously it probably wouldn't!
This was definitely the case when DS was in year 6-a friend of his passed for Crypt,didn't pass for Tommies but put Tommies as 1st choice-he went to 2 appeals but was unsuccessful and ended up at Crypt.So its things like this that make the figures misleading to the parents the following year.

Regards,
GM.
Post Reply