11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi,

Just want to know whether the Bucks paper are sent back to the NFER for comouterised marking or they are marked manually by the teachers in the school (the kids have taken the test)

Regards

Sonia

They are sent back to be marked by an optical reader.

Even computers can go wrong ..

Daft question but I am not sure if I encountered the answer to this.

Does it mean that when NFER marks, grades/rank (bell curve) the kids from Bucks county, it's just going to be amongst the cohorts of the county. Does it mean that only after they have done it that they will mark and rank/grade the OOC? That in the process they are sifting the in county kids first and just filling in with the OOC?

I guess I never really bothered with the process before and now that the exam is over, I'm ending up giddy as we all try to fill in the days before the result.

Sally-Anne, will know, but I would guess it includes OOC, that's why the results take so long to come through. One year a paper was leaked at one of the OOC testing centres and so another paper was used after, and I seem to remember information on here that those taking the new paper would be standardised together, as would all the others. I'll see if I can find the thread.

Some discussion here: http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 12&t=12043" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It seems they have standardisation done over 7000 children, so presumably the same tests are used around the country, presumably over some years?

Goodness me, that means there's a possibility that if there's just too many OOCs applying (just like this year and they got high marks) then the Bucks Grammar will be having more OOCs than Bucks children? I just got confused cause somehow I thought that the round abouts of 30% of passers are based on Bucks county. Yipes!

I think there is some confusion here, although I'm not sure what it is!

There are about 7,000 children who take the test, and their results are all standardised together, not separately for OOC and Bucks children. There are around 5,000 Bucks children who take the test each year, and a further 2,000 OoC testers.

The percentage pass rate for OoC children is always higher because they "opt in" to take the test, whereas Bucks children have to be "opted out" by their parents. For children at Bucks schools (state and private) the pass rate is around 27%, producing around 1500 qualifiers, whereas for OoC children it is nearer 40%, so 800 qualifiers.

The percentage of GS places taken up by Bucks resident children is around 75%, (the 1500 qualifiers), and OoC account for the remaining 25% (550 children). The remaining 250 OoC qualifiers either didn't gain places in Bucks due to oversubscription, or they passed the 11+ in neighbouring counties and accepted places there instead.

Does that clear anything up for anyone?

Oh yes *smites brow emoticon* I temporarily forgot how many take the Bucks test each year. I think it was BCC's wording of it's response in the other thread regarding the leaked paper that confused me!