Test Papers Question

[patricia]

Patricia - do we know for a fact that the missing letter Cloze don't come up in Bucks? My DD hates these (her spelling is not great) so it would be great if this is true!!
If making up your own cloze tests do you give a choice of words for them to select from? How many would you suggest. Should it be a selection per missing word - or a word bank for selection. How does this work for electronic marking? Also - for comprehension - are these marked electronically too - so must be a choice of answers to pick from?

As always - thanks for your help!

Well, I always assumed the missing letter cloze would not lend itself to a multiple choice answer sheet, however mamabear has just showed otherwise.

I do use a similar format as part of my vocabulary learning exercises – from a bank of words, I have given each word a synonym and then removed some letters eg

OBJECT
C_ _ T_ ST

So although I have not used in a cloze passage, I have been using them to enhance the childrens vocabulary and spelling. I will now start putting them in some short stories.

The other types of cloze include

1] “Stacking Cloze” - a word is omitted and 4/5 words stacked on top of each other are offered in its place. Each word is given a letter a-e, the child will mark the relevant letter on the answer sheet.

2] “Word Bank Cloze” – a word bank of 10 words is given above the passage. Each word is given a letter a-j. The child marks the correct letter on the answer sheet. The passage will have only 5 words missing but there are ten possibilities given.

3] “Find the Missing word Cloze” – where the word is omitted the child is given 5 words in a horizontal line above each of the sentences. Each of the words are given a letter a-e.

The answer sheet will not have the words, the child is presented with columns of:

a b c d e
a b c d e
a b c d e
a b c d e
a b c d e

a b c d e f g h I j
a b c d e f g h I j
a b c d e f g h I j
a b c d e f g h I j

So you can see how a child can very easily mark the incorrect answer. They only have to accidently mark the letter against the wrong question number and it can throw a whole section.

Also the pack I have does have a separate answer sheet. Maybe they are expanding the range.

Thank you mamabear for showing the possibility of a cloze appearing as missing letters.

With regard to the answer sheet. I cannot find on the CGP website any CEM style tests with an answer sheet. Do you mean the books which cover each of the disciplines individually?

Patricia

[MamaBear]

Patricia I will pm you

[southbucks3]

According to ds2 (I asked ages ago, for details of our appeal) the cloze was very clear and not at all "congested" he actually did really well in the cloze in the , 11+, unlike all the rest of the test! He has trouble tracking, so it should have been his biggest nightmare (that turned out to be shuffled sentences stupid idea seemingly aimed at confusing children who have tracking problems or dyslexia even). I personally think they realised how congested and clumsy the cloze question answer sheet can be so they tried hard to make it very clear, he did mess it up on the practice paper in school though, but thankfully learnt from his mistake and also he said they had tweaked it slightly on the real test, so there was clearer labelling of the choices.

To be honest it does not count for that many marks, it is the synonyms and antonyms that are the killer.

[kittymum]

Just to say my ds also found the cloze straightforward (he doesn't have any tracking problems). Agree that the synonyms and antonyms were killers - my ds has just been assessed with a contextual reading age of 15, real age 10yr 10 mths (not saying this to be boasting mummy just trying to give an idea of just how hard it was) but found them really tough. He found the comprehension and muddled sentences fine (although some had said there was a lot to read in the time allowed. The verbal was the section my ds scored highest in and looking at his score I'm guessing that every child pretty much found the synonyms and antonyms hard. We did a little bit of cloze practice and a bit of vocab but no comprehension work - the main thing we did was reading - him to himself and me to him and my dd. He always chooses what he reads - from memory I think he read the Cherub series in the run up to the 11+ - I read things slightly more old fashioned (Tom's Midnight Garden etc and we did discuss vocab).

Ds says the NVR was straightforward but there was a lot of it and he was very pushed for time (we prepped for this by doing 2 of the Bond 10 min tests in 10 mins) and the Maths was Ok-ish but a lot to do in the time - he didn't finish either Maths sections but still, despite it being his weakest of the 3, got a decent score. (To give you an idea of his Maths skills he got a 5b in the optional yr 5 SATs - we didn't focus on time in our Maths prep as it just stressed him but worked through word problems together - I did keep testing his times tables though using the Cracking Times Tables format I know is used in a lot of Bucks primaries).

[cocoa0101]

Hi all,

I was just reading this forum and I thought I would let you know that cgp have sent me a multi choice answer sheet, by email, for their first pack of test papers. This will be in the next run of the papers. If anyone would like it, pls pm me your email and I am, happy to forward it on.

[KenR]

Just a word of warning - If Durham follow the same approach when they introduced CEM 11+ into Warwickshire a few year's ago, then the 2nd year exam will be quite different to the initial exam (and very much harder)

They normally do an easier 1st year exam to allow a gradual transition from GL/NFER to CEM

[MamaBear]

oh no!

[southbucks3]

Ken r you are very naughty scaring all us yokel okels down here in bucks. The raw pass mark only seemed to be about 60% as it was, if they make it harder they will terrify the level 3 and 4 children who sit the test, they found it disheartening as it was!
The vocab was really quite tricky with some words getting the epe forumites reaching for their dictionaries. The maths could be made harder, but although it was straight forward barely anyone finished.
Why would they make it harder still?

[Guest55]

The Bucks test is designed to select the top 30% - a very different focus to Warwickshire!

[abc72]

Could anyone please suggest what would constitute more harder maths questions? Complex shapes - volume, perimeter, area, percentages, probability, ratio and proportion, etc. or simply more trickier word problems with straight forward calculations?

Getting bit concerned about our DIY preparation