Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

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Hera
Posts: 856
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:50 pm

Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Hera »

Before all of this year's cohort leave the forum would it be possible for people to post what was included in this year's paper and the materials that were most helpful for preparation? Is is correct that there was comprehension in this year's paper?

Is any of the old material still relevant? I would imagine Athey and Learning Together would now be too numerical to be helpful; but what about Walsh and Susan Daughtrey which are more vocab based, or would it be more relevant to stick solely with the CEM publications?

Thanks.
Hardwork786
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:09 pm

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Hardwork786 »

There was no comprehension. According to my understanding, there were five sections. Synonyms, antonyms, choosing the right word to fit in the sentence, cloze - which is a missing word but with some letters within a sentence and jumbled sentences and choosing the word that doesn't fit.

Hope this helps.
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Daogroupie »

DA0 have provisionally announced their CEM test date for 2016 as Saturday 3rd September.

This makes it likely that they will continue to use the same CEM paper as SW Herts.

SW Herts has not yet announced their dates so we do not know for sure yet.

I was expecting SW Herts to move to CEM for Maths but they can still do this and have one English CEM the same as DAO and then a separate CEM Maths paper.

Or they can go to one CEM paper consisting of Maths and English like HBS.

I would only use CEM materials that reflect the current format. DG
Hera
Posts: 856
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:50 pm

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Hera »

Thank you both for the information. The question types are really useful. Having prepared 2 DCs for the old style I hadn't realised how different it would be for DC3.

As far as CEM material goes would you suggest I use the cloze books by eleven plus, cgp and bond? Are there any other useful resources available?
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Daogroupie »

CGP and First past the post both have really excellent material. The Bond is harder so I would wait a bit before using it.

Because SW Herts only gave you one mark for both papers you can't see just how badly some students did on the CEM.

But over in DAO land we can see exactly what CEM did to this year's crop!

DAO only marked the English and Maths papers of those who got 113 and above on the CEM and I estimate they halved the number of papers they marked. There was a sevenfold increase in the amount of students I know of who did not get their English and Maths papers marked.

But those who focused on CEM were laughing.

It will be very interesting to see what CEM has actually done to the min cut off marks for Parmiters and WGSB and WGSG.

DG
Mgnmum
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:34 pm

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Mgnmum »

DG that is interesting as I had thought that DAO had been doing cem for some time so pupils would be more prepared for it, unlike the SW HERTS children, but if you say the dao scores are low too do we think it was a harder than usual paper?
The whole idea of having the results before you apply is that it gives you an educated guess as to your chances of getting a place. With all the changes this no longer seems the case and we are no better off than 4 years ago.
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Daogroupie »

I broke the news on this forum that DAO and SW Herts had gone to CEM on April 29th so both sets of candidates had exactly the same time to prepare.

I am interested to hear how the news was shared in the SW Herts region. How did parents find out? Do you think there were parents and tutors who did not find out? DG
Mgnmum
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:34 pm

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Mgnmum »

my error, i thought that DAO had been doing CEM style papers for some time, not new this year. Do they use the CEM papers at any of the Barnet or london grammars?
I think the news was spread exceedingly poorly in SW Herts. I heard via this forum, and when we had a meeting with our junior school head in May, she knew nothing about it!
There was no formal notification to the junior schools nor on the website. There is wide discrepancy in how the junior schools help their pupils, some say they have strict instructions to not assist so do nothing, others get outside tutors in to run some classes after school. I think it totally disadvantages those whose parents are less able to afford tutoring or do not have the ability to tutor themselves.
I am in the fortunate position that my eldest got in to WGSG via the academic route 3 years ago so hopefully my son will be having a cross sibling place but I can not see how the new test is fairer. The vocabulary used is way beyond most 10 year olds and it becomes a rote learning exercise, so much for it being 'untutorable'
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Daogroupie »

Latymer is 100% CEM and has been for 3 years. HBS use CEM as a first round to get their numbers down from 2300 to 300 for the second round.

However Latymer is the full CEM which is NVR, NR (Numerical reasoning) and VR (English) and HBS uses NR and VR but not NVR.

The DAO/SW Herts is English CEM only and they are the first to only do English CEM.

The DAO exam is now 71% English as they also have a standard format Comprehension and Creative Writing paper.

They had a min pass mark in the CEM paper to get your English and Maths papers marked.

This has caught out hundreds of candidates. It was supposed to be 115 but they dropped it to 113 to see if they were missing any high English and Maths scores.

It is a shame that the SW Herts cannot see their CEM scores as you only get the one mark.

DG
Mgnmum
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:34 pm

Re: Details about New Cem VR paper, Herts Consortium.

Post by Mgnmum »

thank you, I think this will mean that the outer catchment scores and maybe Parmiters scores will not be that much lower than normal as I think there is quite a lot of overlap between people sitting for both of these, although you would have thought this would mean the DAO scores would be similar to usual as I imagine a number sit for the other schools too. It is interesting that SWHerts have not adopted the full english paper just the VR, but they would probably have uproar from parents. There is a large group who are very anti the schools having any academic criteria. They want the good quality schools but dont associate that with them being partially selective, and yet they turn their noses up at the schools that have no selection saying they dont like them. ( you cant win)
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