Hi
After a challenging exam, how well did your DC perform in comparison to their expected level? (for those who sat practice mocks)
Without telling me scores, did your DC perform:

Better than expected
As expected
Below expected

Thanks

Most people don't bother with mocks as they get a 'free' familiarisation test.

Overall our son did about as well as I would have expected. But his scores on the different sections were a surprise. He did a lot better on non-verbal reasoning than expected, and a lot worse on maths than I would have expected.

He only did one full practice test at home - not a commercial" mock". It was one published by CGP that was supposed to be a specific practice test for the GL Bucks test. He says the non-verbal reasoning items in the practice test were a lot harder than the ones in the actual test on the day.

my son did really well on the verbal reasoning, did fine on Maths but did very badly on the non-verbal reasoning. I think this was because there was almost no information on spatial reasoning type questions and NVR is not his thing anyway.

I have heard a few teachers (who are friends) say this year was a lot harder than the previous year. I have no idea if this is correct though. It'll be interesting to see the statistics when they get released.

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over the counter ed treatment

As the results are standardised in a way to produce a 25% pass rate, there will be no difference seen compared to the previous years, except by looking at the raw scores. If it was harder the standardisation takes that into account.

My child found the mocks and practice tests harder than the actual test.

Glad you have asked this question. I was myself wondering what must have had gone wrong. On the test day he said the paper was super easy and so did his other friends. DS said he completed all section and did check his answers. Finally after receiving his results, he scored as expected in English, above expectation in NVR and below expectation in Maths. Now he tells me that he didn't have enough time to check his answers.

Mock tests were good experience he says. As he learnt the value of time. The initial mock tests he was very poor and the last mock test he was very good. So I am unable to say much.

I have DD, who will be appearing for her 11plus, and I am clueless as to how should I go about it this time. Is passing eleven plus sheer luck? or the tempo our kids are in on that particular day?

My son missed 10 questions in the practise test. He said he didn't have time! that panicked me because speed was never an issue and suddenly 2 days before the actual exam we were having to remind him of the 30 seconds for each question.
On the day he came out very happy. Said it went fine and had managed to answer all but 1 question, he wasn't sure if he was allowed to turn the page back!!!! That 1 question was on the NVR test and actually he scored the worst in that test! I have an feeling because he didn't mark the answer on the answer paper he then got the next ones wrong because he marked the wrong ones on the answer paper!!!! something we'll never know for sure.

We never had an expectation - we just felt/feel he is suitable and completely capable at a Grammar school.

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over the counter ed treatment

My son did better on the actual test than in the mocks - we did a couple of "commercial mocks" beforehand and he was in the lower half of the cohort both times (on one paper, he was actually in the lowest 10% of the cohort which made him feel a bit despondent, but I guess the children who go to commercial mocks are likely to be ones who have a good chance of qualifying, rather than being a representative sample of Bucks children who actually take the test).

In the actual test, I would say he got more or less as expected in the English/Verbal, slightly less than expected in the NVR (he said he struggled with time on that paper), and much, much better than expected in the Maths. I think this is the other way round from some of the other posters on here. I don't think you can generalise whether a child is likely to do better on the actual test or not - I think it depends on the child, on how the child feels on the day, on the questions (whether the "right" types of questions come up which play to your child's strengths), on whether the child remembers to use good exam technique, etc...

It was a roller coaster ride during preparation - I'm just relieved to have made it to the other side!

My DS found the paper easier than the revision material and therefore scored above our expectations.