Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

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stargazer
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 9:57 pm

Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by stargazer »

This is a question for Patricia or any other Kind tutor.

What do you do when you have [b]2 mins left and 8 questions[/b] to do in Verbal reasoning?

Or [b]15 mins left and only just past the halfway mark[/b]? I don’t know how to advise my child, can someone advise me? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
bondgirl
Posts: 802
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:30 am

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by bondgirl »

Hi stargazer

I'm not a tutor (or Patricia!) but I have also been thinking about time management for the VR tests. In the first situation you describe, I would say to carry on working through the questions until there is less a minute to go then guess the remaining questions. It takes literally seconds to fill out a few answer boxes. I have advised DS to guess the same letter for all his guesses rather than opting for a different option each time in the hope that he would pick up one or two marks rather than none (if that makes sense).

In the second scenario (hope it wouldn't happen but you never know :shock: ), I would advise DS to look for the questions he knows he can do quickly first, then come back to the more time consuming types.

I am trying to decide whether to advise this approach from the start ie. start with the quicker types then come back to the more time consuming questions at the end. The concern, of course, is that he forgets to go back. We have just over two weeks to hone our time management. I am leaning towards just doing the questions in the order they come up.

Hope this helps. Any other thoughts?
FluffyD
Posts: 347
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:22 pm
Location: West Yorks

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by FluffyD »

My DS did a paper today, he went through and did all the ones he knew first then went back to do the ones he doesn't like. Instead of him getting stressed, not knowing how much time he had and getting in a fluster he was much calmer, finished with 15 mins to spare and got 90%....it was a massive improvement from last weeks not finishing and getting frustrated/crying because he was stuck on a particular type which then upset him for the rest of the paper.
I think because he knew that he had the majority under his belt then it took a lot of the stress of him.
hth,
Vic x
Vic x
kingsgen
Posts: 121
Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2010 7:02 pm

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by kingsgen »

I do agree with bond girl suggestions but you need to start practising the techniques now so that your child can get used to it. I will suggest that he should do the easy one first, then go back to the difficult ones such as type Z. From experience, some children answer alphabetic pattern, alphabetic coding and number coding quickly as they have mastered the best approach to those questions while they struggle a bit with vocabulary type questions and mathematical type questions. Most children do finish VR test but sometimes struggle with time when it comes to Maths and NVR.

Hope this is helpful.
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by Amber »

I told mine to try to make 'intelligent guesses' rather than just random ones if he was short of time at the end. You can often rule out one or two answers and then just guess between the remainder. For example if there are 4 options like WENT, WHAT, DOGS and LIFT on a code question, the chances are it is going to be one of the first two, so guess between them. Or on a Maths type question, answers within the same kind of range are more likely, eg 4.81, 4.86, 27, 214... It's not dead cert but on the whole it can give you an indication if time is really short.
Daogroupie
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Location: Herts

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by Daogroupie »

Now that there are so many highly prepared candidates I believe that eleven plus entrance exams have become as much about technique as ability. In my opinion the more control the student can take over the paper the better. Why should you do the questions in the order that they have been set down when your brain works best in a different order? Take control over the paper by doing the questions in the order that suits you best. In my opinion this is the best way to maximise marks. You will do the questions you do best in the shortest amount of time leaving you more time to do the ones you find hardest. You will also feel more and more confident the more questions you have done thereby leaving you in the best possible frame of mind to tackle the questions you find tricky. I have used this technique myself recently in exams and have ended up getting a higher mark than those who were much better than me and had done a lot more preparation. They wasted far too much time on questions they found hard which were at the start of the paper and ended up running out of time and not even attempting questions they would have found very straightforward. This method does not work for the very anxious student who may find it far too stressful to leave questions undone and move past them to others. I would recommend you try it out and see what results you get. DG
stargazer
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 9:57 pm

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by stargazer »

Thank you for all your lovely responses. All your suggestions are being considered ie mainly to do the easiest and quickest first. It makes so much sense.

However, there is the niggling question of whether a 10 year old has the maturity not to get in a muddle over the multiple choice answer sheet.

Will it be a problem with the NFER VR and English paper?

Does anyone know of any child’s previous experience that confirms this?

Thanks (I find this website very therapeutic!)
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by scary mum »

When my son was doing practice papers this time last year (bright sparks etc) he rarely got to the end of the paper which meant that he didn't complete the codes at the end, which were ones he could get 100% on every time, so was throwing away marks. I encouraged him (with some misgivings) to do those questions straight away to get them under his belt and then take the rest of the paper. In the event he speeded up so much in the last couple of weeks that it was an unnecessary complication. I suppose the lesson from that is that practice makes perfect and helps them speed up. Good luck.
scary mum
Long Journey
Posts: 160
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 11:43 am

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by Long Journey »

Interesting what FluffyD and Dao say about how best to answer. I think I should get DD to try that. Like the OP I worry though that my she may not have the maturity to follow that technique, and leave out large chunks. She can be a bit ditzy my DD.

I suppose most children do the questions sequentially, and those who follow a different pattern would get an edge. I know when mine runs out of time she misses out on some very easy marks at the end.
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Time management Advice - Patricia or Tutor please

Post by Amber »

Some authorities (Warks comes to mind?) do not allow a child to turn back once a page has been completed. How this is actually implemented I don't know, but if computers are used I can see it possibly being an issue.

My son muddled a whole section of questions and did the answers in the wrong place without even trying to miss any out! He only noticed because he went onto a code section and realised the answers didn't fit. He rubbed out all the wrong ones and started again. He told me this on the way home from the exam and I tried really hard not to break down in a hysterical wailing fit. Oddly, he did pass comfortably. With this in mind, I wouldn't wholeheartedly be recommending trying to skip questions in that way - I think the time management required might be beyond most 10 year olds, and could become an issue worse than the one it is trying to correct; but maybe some very disciplined ones would cope.
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