Bond assessment paper answers

[salsa]

Hi OldTrout,

Great advice, thank you. I'll give the CGP CEM papers a go.

I'm glad to hear that they don't use much of the codes types in CEM.

[PurpleDuck]

Not sure if it was out or we missed this change in Bond VR books.

From what I have seen so far, Bond is trying to catch up with CEM style exams and their CEM papers are just a small addition to their existing 'traditional' range. They don't have CEM '10-minute tests' yet, only assessment papers and practice exam papers.

[Newbiee]

Hi Salsa:

I am afraid we just used 10 minute bond books for weekly practice in manageable chunks and pretty easy for little fish/ small fry to do a few as and when, without much involvement from me.

For practice papers this past exam (so Sept 2015) we used CGP CEM 11+ papers (I think there were 3 sets) - and yes, they were noticeably harder. We tried our first around Easter Y5 with both girls (using older style Bond papers - pre CEM style format for little fish attempt which was Sept 2013) - in both cases they just weren't really ready - so their first attempt at a practice paper was o.k. in places, but shaky in others - in general I felt both girls had a long way to go to achieve the 85% the Bond paper/ CGP papers recommended at this time of year - if that helps.

I also made absolutely sure that if they had a disaster of a paper I would present it as a good thing. Great, we've discovered you don't quite get x or y concept/ mathematical problem/ etc... - so let's go away and work on that before the next practice paper.

hope that helps.

Thank you so much. Yes i do find Bond books are different to other publications. We have been doing CGP as well and my DD seems to like it more and also Bond books dont give you explanation to questions. CGP are quite good and i found it useful to tutor my DD.
My DD seems to be getting around 80% in both CGP and Bond. She has improved from when we started this process. But there is long way to go

[PurpleDuck]

Thank you so much. Yes i do find Bond books are different to other publications. We have been doing CGP as well and my DD seems to like it more and also Bond books dont give you explanation to questions.

Bond 11+ Test Papers do provide detailed answers and explanations to questions in the answers booklet (which their assessment papers books don't). I found those very helpful, especially for some more obscure VR questions. I do prefer CGP 11+ series and First Past The Post, though - they are more varied and by far more challenging than Bond books.

[Petitpois]

Strange we did loads of ten minutes tests with the bond books. Most stuff has been purchased in the last year.

Our tuition company used them especially for comprehension.

Anyhow, I am not abandoning bond and I like the style and format, although one of my mistakes was not following the exam schedule to the letter.

That said, the other two biggies were schofield & sims mental arithmetic and reading as much as possible as previously mentioned.

Regardless of all this, I am just starting it all up at the moment with my year 4. I made myself a A4 spreadsheet using the excel Randbetween(x,y) function which generates 100 questions on timetables between 1-12 and negative number addition and subtraction questions between (-100 and +100). You can create much stuff yourself.

I include the last point to show, you shouldn't get too bogged down on any one set of resources or indeed approach. Do what works!!!

- Additionally as I am just finding out my Y4 is a complete different cookie to the older one

- It is a major shock having to adjust back to a standard that we were dealing with two years ago. Perhaps even harder now we know what the pass standard is for the 11+.

- Made even harder by them progressing faster through curriculum than was previously the case. I worry that the depth of understanding and mastery will not be there (don't want to get caught out). Come 2017 wonder how many parents will get caught out.

Any how just some thoughts having waged a campaign centred around using bond materials and the old KS2 curriculum. Now musing having to start from scratch again with Y4, but with the the variables shifting a bit.

PP

[PurpleDuck]

Strange we did loads of ten minutes tests with the bond books. Most stuff has been purchased in the last year.
Our tuition company used them especially for comprehension.

Just to clarify - when I suggested Bond was too easy, I was referring (only mentally, so it was totally obscure to everyone else ) to their maths books. We found the questions were somewhat repetitive, so once DS did a particular question a couple of times, it was just working to the same pattern but with different numbers. He did a couple of Bond maths books and moved onto CGP, which he found quite challenging.

As for comprehension, DS found Bond hard, especially the comprehension only books (as opposed to the general English assessment papers). In any case, DS's exam was multiple choice comprehension, so Bond was not the right format for him to use for practice.

Bond's verbal reasoning became quite repetitive after a few tests, so we moved onto Athey 11+ tests and Barbara Walsh's VR books, just to get some more variety. They had some types of questions that I did not see in 11+ Bond books. However, Bond VR was a very good starting point for someone who never did VR before.

DS1 did most of his preparation using Bond materials; with DS2 we mixed and matched all sorts of things and I felt it worked to his advantage. I am not suggesting though this is the way to do things, it's just what worked for us and everyone is different.

[OldTrout]

I would stress calculation speed - gives your child more time to deal with questions.

We used my maths games (if your school subscribes you'll have membership until mid to late sept). Snaky sums, but also,there are some great platform games that get progressively more time pressured. Ideal for late year 4/ early year 5 practice.

Facility with vocabulary and fill in the blank can be improved with free rice http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1480 and how many words can you make http://www.eastoftheweb.com/games/Eight1.html. More word games on woodlands junior school literacy. All free.

We played scrabble, banana grams and boggle a lot as a family as well.

HTH

[salsa]

Thank you, great advice.

Does anybody know if CEM use the codes or logic types? They take an eternity and I don't know if we need to spend any time in them.

[PurpleDuck]

If you look at the contents page of the CGP 11+ VR for CEM Study Book on the link below, it will tell you what types of questions are covered. There is no reference to codes on the contents and index pages, so I would assume they don't feature in the CEM tests, but that's just my assumption.

They have sections on 'Multiple Statement Questions - Logic' and 'Reasoning', though.

https://www.cgpbooks.co.uk/Parent/books ... lip_VHRDE1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[salsa]

Thank you. I've got that book and yes, the logic ones are there. They take for ever!
No codes for this, which is a relief. However, my son is also doing Kent, so I don't know if they crop up there with the new shorter test.