Maths Mistakes

[dwisdom]

We have been doing some mock tests a local centre- but my child has been making lots of silly mistakes
eg Find the % of the unselected area - and then she chooses a % for selected area instead

[sbarnes]

That's very interesting; is there a question you need to ask or just stating what we all go through as parents.

[MerlinFromCamelot]

May I asked if the centre where the child was tested offer their own 11+ courses?

I have not used centres for mock tests as such but in my experience from what other parents told me last year these test are often a lot harder than they need to be. When you then get the results, no doubt the centre can offer you a suitable course to try and fix the problem. Should the child pass the 11+ then the centre have done really well and if not they could use the argument that the child was already weak. A friends son got a very poor result in 3 different mock tests and passed both Bexley and Kent with a high score.

If you are finding that she makes a lot of silly mistakes it may be a good idea to find a book with longer wordy questions ( Scofield and Simms springs to mind and they are not that £££) Sit down with her and ask her to talk you through how she/he would work out the questions. Present her with the same question a few days later to work out by herself and see what she remembers. Getting her to underline important bits she needs to work out the answer may also be helpful.

good luck!

[loobylou]

We had this a fair bit too. I must have said "Read the question" a thousand times. It's still worth reiterating though, every single time. Recently I was marking post graduate application forms - I did this annually for about 5 years. The questions were marked very specifically and every time there were people who scored terribly because they simply didn't read the question - and these were intelligent post graduates who had done extremely well academically. And still they fell at the easiest hurdle.
Also remember that sometimes it is on the easiest questions where they make the silly mistakes. If she didn't think she needed to read the question that closely (because it seems obvious) then I found my dd was more prone to make mistakes than with a question where she had to concentrate more...
I have to say that she does seem to have learned the lesson and she is very good at reading questions now!

[dwisdom]

The mock was 12 pounds...I think great value for money ...so different than doing at home