11 Plus Exams Forum

Does anyone else find that the answers to the multiple choice English questions are not always clear cut ?

In many cases I have come across questions (in the Comprehension Section) where the answer could be 2 or 3 of the possible 5 choices available to choose from.

I guess this practice paper is just to test the child's comprenhesion skills rather than simulating the real exam - because I personally don't know of any schools who use multiple choice to test in English.

As a result, my DC's scores are low in English compared to the other NFER papers - Maths, Non Verbal & Verbal.

Has any one else found this ?

Yes.....there have been comments on the site mentioning this very topic.
Some practise papers can throw in a few 'similar' answers. No idea of whether this is to make the child think a bit more and therefore not get drawn into just seeing a possible answer and not checking the rest..... or it has just got thru a QA procedure by mistake.
My Ds didn't have to do them (not part of 11+) but there may be someone who has experience of them who can give you a more definate explanation.

Feeley wrote:Does anyone else find that the answers to the multiple choice English questions are not always clear cut ?

Yes. The Nfer-Nelson English papers have more scope for criticism/argument than the others. I have found that sometimes their choice of word defintions, for example, is either wrong, IMHO, or requires a ludicrously fine distinction to be made between possible meanings.

This is to some extent unavoidable in English though.

As a result, my DC's scores are low in English compared to the other NFER papers - Maths, Non Verbal & Verbal.

Has any one else found this ?

Yes. My daughter regularly scored lower on English papers than VR or M. (We didn't have to do the NVR stuff, luckily - now there's a subject that open to intepretation ..)