Looking for some advice. My son has just got 66% in a GL maths paper. I think reality is setting in for me now. His VR is also around 70-75%. Not long left now and I was really hoping to spend this time improving his vocab and his NVR skills. Please be honest, he's not going to be able to do it, is he?

The other thing is, how do i find out how many tiles are needed to cover a square area? any advice on these types of questions?
so if a tile measures 50cm by 50cm and you have a wall measuring 3 metres by 9 metres, how many tiles are needed? (BTW, Ive just made this question up, but its similar to one that I saw on a question paper that he got wrong, i just could'nt help him though)

Is probability an area they will be tested on?

In this case you would want to determine how many tiles would go along the wall and then up the wall

In this case it would be 6 (3 metres / 0.5m) tiles along by 18 tiles up the wall so 6*18=108 tiles.

Thank you Hermanmunster (love the name ). hadnt realised it was that straightforward, but perfect explanation.

Son's just done a GL VR paper (timed and for the first time) and scored 73%. his downfall is his vocab, so that's what i'll be focusing more on. but can anyone else share their views on his maths scores? please?
what are your children scoring on GL practice papers right now? or is this not a question that should be asked? I've searched previous topics but cant find anything.

my post is getting a lot of views, but not much response. Think this board is much quieter than it used to be many years ago when my other 2 were going through the process.

most of the views tend to be automated search bots - they really put the numbers up!

Hopefully some other parents doing GL will be around to share info soon

Hi misspiggy,

I’m afraid I’m not from Bucks but DD did GL-based 11+ a few years ago. If you look at some of the posts about raw score results from other GL areas eg Kent you’ll see that successful raw scores are often quite low. People say you should aim for 80% + in practice for safety given the effect of test stress.

Of course 66% might not be enough when the results are standardised but I wouldn’t be giving up just yet. Have a look at where your DS is going wrong. Is he reading the question correctly or rushing through? Is he answering in the correct box or making an alignment error? Does he have a gap in his understanding of that area of maths? There are various maths workbooks that can help with misunderstandings eg Letts or Bond (off the top of my head). If the 66% was scored under timed conditions make sure your DS isn’t spending too long on questions he finds hard. It’s better to skip these to come back to, or even mark in a guess and keep going. You can’t get any marks on questions you don’t answer.

There is still time to work out the kinks. As long as you take some time for a break the additional work you put in for 11+ will help him - especially given the patchiness of school this year.

HTH
PS

Thank you very much Perpertualstudent for your advice. this morning i've been analysing his papers and making a list of the topics he's got wrong. Amazingly, its the same throughout. scale drawings, algebra, nth number, area (the more complex ones like the tiles needed) 3D shapes and always a couple of silly mistakes due to not reading the question properly (calculate the percentage reduction, so he calculates the percentage and then forgets to take it off the original price) etc. so looks like I'll be concentrating on these and then retest. Thank you once again. i guess its not over until its over. so i'll keep going.... thankfully not too long to go now. i cant wait for this to be over. my own fault for leaving it sooo late. I've only just started English comprehension with him this week too.