11 Plus Exams Forum

I have been reading through the Bond 9-10 comprehension books in preparation for using these with DS (now Y4) and a lot of the questions either ask you to 'refer to the text' in your answer or to 'answer using your own words'. In the answer section of the Bond book, the 'refer to the text' bit is to write the line number in brackets-is this sufficient in the 11+ (Essex) or would you be expected to use actual quotations from the text?

Also, if you are asked to use 'your own words'-does that mean that you would be marked down for using any of the words given in that part of the text. The Bond answers still seem to use some of the key words from the text in the odd answer which baffled me!

I just wondered what would be expected in the actual test. Is there anything on a similar level to these Bond questions we could try-something not quite as scary as the papers from the last three years from the CSSE which I think might give him a nervous breakdown if I showed him now!

Many thanks

in your own words usually means don;t copy word for word from the text.

The refer to the text is not normally required by CSSE, but as you know the paper changed last year. In your own words is means what it says. You will be penalised for using the words from the text that are key vocab.