how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

11 Plus Maths – Preparation and Information

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by SleepyHead »

DD is taking an hr to do 1 bond maths assessment paper from book 1 (9-10). Each paper has 50 questions in it, I feel that it should take about 45 mins, please could someone recommend what to aim for. Obviously focusing on accuracy at the moment but would like DD to pick up a bit of speed.

Any feedback much appreciated :)
SH
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by mystery »

How old is she, which year group, and what does the book suggest?

If she really does need to be faster, I think it might be useful to try and work out what the time is going on rather than just pushing her to be faster e.g. if you find that she is slow at doing certain types of arithmetic then you might need to work on the aspects that are slowing her down (e.g. slow recall of certain number facts) and then see if that results in shorter times on the paper.
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by SleepyHead »

Hi Mystery, thank you for your reply. :)

DD is nearly 9 years old (in year 4). The book suggests 30 mins per paper, which I am really surprised at, that's quite a tight timescale.

I wonder if DD could work faster and is just taking her time because it isn't an exam and it's just 'extra work,' or whether she needs the time to work things out.

Good idea to find out if the time is spent on certain question types, I will certainly try to see if this is the case and focus on any topics that come up.

I was just getting a bit worried as clearly she needs to be very fast (and as accurate as poss) to have a good chance at the exams to come (2014/15). Whilst these exams are still far away enough not to panic, I know we will have to work on speed at some point.

Thanks
SH
moved
Posts: 3826
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:42 pm
Location: Chelmsford and pleased

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by moved »

It is very early to worry about timing. I would let her work through at her own pace and make sure that she understands everything she is doing.

Try splitting the paper into two 30 min chunks; an hour is too long for her to absorb the content.
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by SleepyHead »

thanks moved, yes in the hour I do see that she seems to get slower and slower. Probably DD's concentration waning no doubt.

Perhaps I'll ask her to do as much as possible in 1/2 an hour and then take a short break before starting the next bit.

Thanks for the advice

P.S When should I start focusing on speed, at the moment accuracy is not too bad, gets on average 5 wrong per paper. 3 of these because she doesn't really know how to do the topic , and the other couple are silly mistakes.
SH
moved
Posts: 3826
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:42 pm
Location: Chelmsford and pleased

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by moved »

Speed comes once the techniques and skills have been acquired. Start with 10 minute papers in year 5 and move to full papers 3-6 months before the test.
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by SleepyHead »

thanks moved for such a quick reply.

DD has already done the 10min papers, these don't pose a problem for her, as she's done quickly (and goes back to playing!)

It was more the full paper (i.e the one with 50 questions) that takes a long time to complete, (double the recommended time.) Generally we do a couple of the 9-10 papers one week, then some topic work the next week, and then back to the papers the following week, and so on.

For the topic work, she works well. I guess that's because it's focused on one theme.

Perhaps the full papers are tougher as she has to cover several different topics and move between the topics quite quickly?

SH
Last edited by SleepyHead on Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by mystery »

Ooh you are scaring me now as my DD1 is year 4 and nearly 9 and we are doing nothing like that. We are currently doing 1 Bond VR paper per week - she does it in bits so I don't know how long it takes her.

It still strikes me as early days to be worrying about timing but having spotted the "problem" like you I would want to understand it better and have a plan for tackling it if things didn't speed up by themselves over the next few months. If you can't quickly see where the time is lost, then I'd split it up into smaller chunks (maybe even more than the 2 chunks that Moved suggested) and see if she gets much closer to the 30 mins for the total paper.

You could do a few things to make her more aware of the time that is passing - e.g. draw a line at a certain time, hang a stopwatch around her neck etc.

It is useful to have thought about this now as if it's recall of number facts which is slowing her down, and your real 11plus paper is going to need that, then you are giving yourself a good amount of time to resolve the problem. Moving a lot of facts to instant recall can't be done overnight so your concern at this point could be timely.

Which 11plus area are you?
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by SleepyHead »

Hi mystery, sorry I didn't mean to scare anyone... We are sitting for north London consortium, I am not sure if VR plays a part in it so we arent doing any VR at the moment, but the past papers available for Maths and English seem very demanding. My worry stems from the fact that by the time DD will sit the exam in January 2015, after 1 term in year 6, her school wouldn't have covered the work relevant to the exam. :? Typically the last few questions on the paper are particularly difficult, and I guess this is what differentiates the candidates. I am taking this on myself so that DD stands a good chance of some of the more selective schools.


If VR does play a part in the assessment, then I would do this in year 5, but I am yet to find this out. :oops:

Thanks for your reply and ideas about practising number recall. You are right, having seen that DD takes time for her papers, it is hard to ignore! I will try to implement some of the ideas suggested by both you and moved - your suggestions are really appreciated :)

SH
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: how long should Bond 9-10 Maths Assessment paper take?

Post by mystery »

Ah yes, I can see that you are concerned that you may have to teach ahead of school at home, and also that speed is important. As the others have said I wouldn't personally get hung up on speed yet as it can be very demoralising for both you and her. However, let's say that you identified that this wasn't a case of idle day dreaming or procrastination, or just that this is how long it takes a child new to the particular techniques to do those particular papers, then you will have a job to do in working out how to speed up instant recall of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts maybe in order to speed things up on those papers - if the cause is buried somewhere within that. Or it could be that her time is taken up thinking how to solve a problem - what steps to take, which operators to use etc ... I guess you will only find out by somehow seeing in more detail how she works and which sorts of things she is faster or slower than you might expect on.

I am probably going to have to go beyond the material covered at school too - at the moment I haven't really got my head round how I will do that - this is partly because I don't know what they have and haven't done at school! I think I will do some Bond 10 minutes maths tests on different topic areas and see which topics she struggles with. Then I'll use books like Level Up and Target Maths and Rising Starts to work on material relating to those topics and go from material she can comfortably do now through to a level or two higher on those topics. I know though this will be hard because finding the time to break new ground at home is not so easy, and then it needs to be practised to stick. If it's not being covered regularly at school it goes ... so I suppose that will then mean going back to papers like Schofield and Sims and Bond and so on which provide regular practice of a wide variety of topics each day / week.

Good luck!

P.S. I don't know what our tests will consist of either as there seems to be a fair chance that the Kent test in 2014 will be different from the one used for many years now
Post Reply