New CEM - No English?

[tand]

Hi,
I checked new CEM formats and understand there is no English test. It says, numerical ability, VR and Non VR only. About VR - It doesn;t have any detail but I am assuming that ********** / Bonds assessment tests (21 types) will help. Is my understanding correct.
Please comment.

Thanks
Tand

[Okanagan]

Forget your 21 types - what CEM call VR isn't what you are used to. In fact in many ways it's more like English.

In Warwickshire where we've had CEM for a while papers typically include multiple-choice comprehension, cloze (can be choose which word from a selection, or fill in the missing letters style), antonyms, synonyms, jumbled sentences (spot which word doesn't fit - e.g. "continued days nonstop several against rain the for") or change 1/2 letters in a word to give a new word which they'll give a definition of eg stunted: dazed _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (stunned) or pony : refuse - - - - (deny).

Have a look at the past years content sticky on the Birmingham section and also at this one on CEM preparation.

[Y]

Forget your 21 types - what CEM call VR isn't what you are used to. In fact in many ways it's more like English.

In Warwickshire where we've had CEM for a while papers typically include multiple-choice comprehension, cloze (can be choose which word from a selection, or fill in the missing letters style), antonyms, synonyms, jumbled sentences (spot which word doesn't fit - e.g. "continued days nonstop several against rain the for") or change 1/2 letters in a word to give a new word which they'll give a definition of eg stunted: dazed _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (stunned) or pony : refuse - - - - (deny).

Have a look at the past years content sticky on the Birmingham section and also at this one on CEM preparation.

Bucks CEM will be multiple choice. Can't readily see a way to make the 'fill in the missing letters' and 'change 1 or 2 letters' type multi choice. Is Warwickshire standard format? Or am I missing something!

[Okanagan]

You may not get all those types. And you might get some different ones. Those were just examples of the kind of questions CEM have set in the past. As this is the first year for Bucks nobody really knows - but looking at what they've done elsewhere will give you some clues.

[mystery]

Am I right in saying that Bucks is their first authority with "blanket coverage" with grammar schools? So it's the first of their tests which will be completely multiple choice, and the first one where they are going as low as selecting say the top 25%?

Has the talk of multiple choice with more than four or five answers to select from stopped now?

[Okanagan]

Th jumbled sentences with an extra word type questions will have more than 4 or 5 words so more than 4 or 5 possible answers - e.g. "continued days nonstop several against rain the for" would be multiple choice with 8 possible answers.

CEM do run secondary asssessments for the whole ability range in the form of MidYis, so they probably have a very good idea from that which questions can be answered from which part of the ability range.

[mystery]

Ah right. My older children's schools always used to write and tell us midyis was unreliable. Is it generally thought ok at individual child level. Sorry off topic.

[Okanagan]

My older children's schools always used to write and tell us midyis was unreliable.

In which context - predicting future outcomes, or measuring where they are at a point in time?

[mystery]

Good question - it was in relation to future outcomes; no comment was made about placing children relative to others. Is it good in this respect.? The scary thing with all these tests is that the confidence intervals are never quoted.