11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi

I wanted to ask for some help from the experienced parents and tutors. When my son attempts a comprehension paper his written answers are completely different to his Verbal answers.

It is as though he becomes mechanical and gets confused because he is scared to write what he thinks but instead is trying to write in a certain way he has been told to get the marks. This may mean quoting from the text etc. As a result his written answers all are fact retrieved and not inferred.

Now that I have identified the issue I would like to show him how he should be structuring the answers and so would like examples of 11+ level difficult papers with answers. I have seen the Robert Walsh papers is that a good choice?

Is there a web link or a book that can guide me on the method of answering these questions?

I have always been rather puzzled as his class teacher thinks he can't infer but I have always known he can. Until now I was confused as to why the teacher and I had such differing opinion.

With the upcoming 11+ i would like to help him so he is putting what he understands on paper.

Thank you all so much

confusedmummyofboys wrote:
he becomes mechanical and gets confused because he is scared to write what he thinks but instead is trying to write in a certain way he has been told to get the marks. This may mean quoting from the text etc. As a result his written answers all are fact retrieved and not inferred.

What specifically do you mean? can you provide an example of this if possible? What is the 'certain way' he has been told to adopt?

Thank you for responding.

Well at school he has been told to write in complete sentences and to answer what is asked. It is quite difficult to know exactly what he is taught as I don't get to see a lot of it. It's just he just keeps saying 'Mrs ... told me to do it like this." He doesn't write what he thinks.

When I sat him down to do some comprehension when we discussed it he understood what was going on. When he wrote the answer he began to fact retrieve and only wrote what was in the passage and not the wider understanding, which he actually had.

He doesn't know what should be included and what shouldn't. We bought the Robert Lomax comprehension so I could see model answers as bond don't provide full sentences.

I hope I have made sense. In some cases he rewrote the question in the answer without giving any additional information. For example why is the mood negative? Negative language is used therefore the mood is negative. I understand in this case he needs to provide evidence.

Would you say Robert Lomax model answers is a good way to go?

Again sorry for delayed response I didn't see this. I will find an answer he has written and post it when I get home.