Multi choice...or not? Still confused.

[greengekho]

I know I have asked this question before...but I'm asking again as the familiarisation booklet doesn't fall in line with feedback I have received and I'm concerned that I have a blind spot and missing something very simple/key!

My understanding was that the Bucks CEM is all multiple choice. I asked the school last week and they said that was correct, and that the format would be shown in the familiarisation booklet.

The booklet has arrived though, and the 'Maths 1' section indicates that not all questions are multi choice.

I'm sorry to keep asking - I just want to make sure I understand properly.

[Aethel]

If the answer to a maths question is eg "31", the children will have to put a line through a box or boxes to show that answer. It will either look like this :

A) 25 B) 31 C) 35 D) 39 E ) 4567

(In which case the child puts a line through box "B")

or it will have three lines of boxes like this : child writes 031 at the top and then marks the boxes underneath (which is what the machine reads)

Answer: 031

0 3 1
_____________________

0 [-] 0 [] 0 []
1 [] 1 [] 1 [-]
2 [] 2 [] 2 []
3 [] 3[-] 3 []
Etc etc for 4 to 10

(The boxes include 4-10 also but I'm not typing all of them out!! )

Make sense?

[greengekho]

Hi Aethel,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply - typing out the example must have been fiddly so I appreciate it!
Your description does make sense, but I can't see why they ask the kids to spell out the numbers (so to speak) if the question was multi choice? Surely it would just follow the ABCDE format you described?
In the familiarisation book the questions where they have to 'spell' the answer out in numbers don't appear to be multi choice.
The reason I'm a little bit hung up on it is because it does change the strategy(ies) I'm suggesting to my son (we are DIYing). It would save a lot of confusion if I knew whether we need to cover both or not.
I even asked the school last week and they said it was all multi choice "...as described in the familiarisation booklet.", but that doesn't seem to be what the booklet is saying.

[kenyancowgirl]

Why not just tell your son to read the instructions and the question carefully?! I'm not being funny but really part of the skill of coping with the test - and secondary school and life in general - is not to be thrown by relatively simple changes/instructions. CEM are known for requiring you to expect the unexpected....you are in danger of setting him up to fail if you are too prescriptive about what he should expect.

[greengekho]

Thanks.
I'm pretty sure that a decent part of what all the tutors/prep books/mock exams are geared towards though, is helping the kids to be as prepared as possible by practising question styles and formats etc, so the kids can concentrate on the content during the time limited exam, instead of wasting time on trying to understand the format. Hence why we are given a familiarisation booklet.
The 11+ is not supposed to be a test of how flexible a child is at adapting as far as I'm aware...else they wouldn't bother providing the booklet. From what I've gathered the feeling seems to be that changes in styles/formats seem to be more of an attempt to make the test 'tutor proof'.
I'm not sure there are many occasions in life beyond that require the same level of speed and accuracy without prior knowledge of the style of test you are entering into...with the possible exceptions of situations on "I'm a celebrity...GMOOH", The Crystal Maze or possibly some covert government selection processes!

[Daogroupie]

CEM is absolutely a test of how easily a student can respond to timed sections, each with a
different format.

The booklet gives you some examples but don't rely on it. It by no means covers all the formats that may come up and some of the sections in the booklet will not come up.

One of the CEMs last year had no antonyms and synonyms at all despite the fact they were over 50% of the booklet.

The best thing you can do is to keep throwing different formats at it until he gets used to always reading the instructions before starting.

There is no point at all focusing on the content if you do not read the instructions directing you to what you are supposed to do with the content. DG

[Aethel]

Green, we DIY'd last year, with the advice on here being very useful for me as all the other local parents I knew (apart from one who was herself a teacher!) opted for the tutoring route. I used as many different CEM-style sources as possible for variety (lots of CGP but also lost of other bits) and you have to have a bit of a "scattergun" approach to be honest.

Folk on here will say "xx question" hasn't come up in previous years (I have no idea how they know, but hey!) but it's not a bad idea to just look broadly at principles and question types. DD1 sat last year and said there were definitely some questions where the answer was numerical (it's still multi choice, just with 10 digits to choose in each place).
Sometimes there may be missing-letter questions with the "multi choice"
Boxes being all 26 letters! The only common theme is that by putting lines in boxes rather than free text writing/numbers, the whole thing can be machine marked for efficiency.

[greengekho]

Thank you so much - that is very useful to know - at least I now know that I need to provide plenty of variety in styles, and I shall warn him to pay close attention to the answer format. Thanks!

[Guest55]

I believe each sub-section has an example before they start and the CD explains what to do.