KE Birmingham

Eleven Plus (11+) in Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Wrekin

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Guest

KE Birmingham

Post by Guest »

My daughter sat the test yesterday morning. We said we wouldn't talk about it afterwards, but she was so bubbling with it that she has talked non stop about it since. I can tell you what was in it if anyone is interested as she has told me in such detail.
next year KEG mum

Post by next year KEG mum »

Out of curiosity what was in the KEG papers?
KenR

KE Exam 05-11-05

Post by KenR »

My son sat the exam yesterday but can't remember all that much. I would be interested if your daughter remembered some of the synonyn words that that had in one of the papers. I believe many of them started with RE... but my son can't recall any of them.

On a general point, I believe that the first paper, which was supposed to cover mathematics, just contained lots of arithmetic which required speed but no great mathematical ability. I'm not sure if you agree, but I found this disappointing - you can be tutored to perform arithmetic questions quickly but it doesn't necessily demonstrate any great mathematical potential. I would be interested to hear other views. We had been practicing NFER and other maths test papers but might have been better practicing lots of straighforward arithmetic tests.

My son failed to complete all of the "maths" questions but completed all of the other sections ok in the time limit. He thought the non verbal was very easy - much easier than some of the NFER examples he had been doing.

He found the comprehension straighforward - this was the section where they were given a passage to read which was then handed in before they answered questions about it.

I would be interested in hearing from other parents how there children faired in terms of time.
Guest

Post by Guest »

My daughter explained:

10 mins proof reading
10 mins word recognition with definitions
25 mins maths and verbal reasoning

15 mins break

10 mins non verbal
20 minutes maths
15 answering questions on proof reading and finding the meaning of made up words.

She said that the words were hard - ie meaning of words - inaugurate was one, and pompous another. However, in my experience children struggle terribly with word meanings. Maths - some was easy and some was hard. For example, how long did it take to fill different sizes of containers? Something like that, now I think that is harder than NFER papers which we practised - she is very good at maths, so if it was hard, I believe her. She was getting 90ish% on NFER. The words were 81 in 10 mins.

We have to wait and see!
Guest

Post by Guest »

By the way, she has got a very good memory and she remembered that the non verbal was quite different from NFER and had bugs evolving into new bugs (her words). However, she didn't mention any of the words other than inaugurate which I think is the most ridiculous word to expect a 10 year old to know. She did know this word though, but didn't find what she thought the meaning to be in the definitions!

My daughter is also very young - only 10 and 2 months - I wish they could wait and do the test later, as it is very young to be sitting a paper aimed at 11 year olds. Do you want your son to go to Camp hill or five ways? I just want both my children to go to the same school.
next year KEG mum

Post by next year KEG mum »

Thank you very much for that clear but daunting insight.

The vocabulary expectation are very high these days. What do the kids do, sit their English GCSE's the week after 11 plus exams?

Please thank your daughter and wish her the very best of luck for March 2006.
CONFUSED GIRL

Post by CONFUSED GIRL »

Questions to the guest whose daughter has very good memory.

Could you tell me what is 'proof reading' please? Is it another expression of reading comprehension or a different form of test? You said their last 15 min was for answering questions on proof reading, did they still have the piece at hand or they had to answer the questions according to their memory? Were they allowed out during the break?

Thank you.
Guest

Post by Guest »

They sat at their desks for a break and no they don't have the passage to hand (about Polynesians on Easter Island and how they chopped down all the trees to make canoes). Proof reading is correcting errors in work. The errors may be spelling, punctuation, or grammatical. Good practise papers are Bond English exam practise papers as they have very similar proof reading exercises in them.

The children need to read the passage, understand it, correct it and then store it away for future use. They need a good memory, which luckily my daughter has so she could remember well. The passage also had numbers in it, ie the population declined from 10000 to 2000 because of lack of trees for canoe building, which they needed to fish. (I am going by what my daughter has told me and remember she is 10 and 2 months, so she may have it wrong)

My only reservation about giving this information, is that University of Durham are bringing out a new entrance test in January 06, according to their website. So be wary about concentrating on limited elements for next year, as the test could change again - who knows.
BB

Is this the passage?

Post by BB »

I found the mentioned passage on the Net. Please confirm. thank you.
Link 1: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html
Link 2: http://www.geocities.com/tsesung/ecolog ... sland.html
KEMum

Post by KEMum »

Just heard - my little girl with the good memory got it to KE Camp Hill - her first choice school. We are over the moon with her. Can't believe how lucky we have been.

Hope everyone else has good news too. What a disappointing letter though. Just a little white envelope and the Birmingham City Council logo. It is a pity that our postie comes so late because I am telling all you folks before she knows herself, but I am bursting to tell someone even though it is just a computer screen.

Good luck and thank you 11+ exams for all the support that this forum has given me over the past few very stressful months. I think my stress reached a crescendo this past week and I have found reading about other parents all over England quite heartening. Such kind people here.

Thank you.
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