11 Plus Exams Forum

One of the mums at my son's school was telling me there were two sittings for this year's exam as so many children were taking it and not enough venues to hold exams on one day.

Is this true? How would this work?? Surely there is a chance child A could tell his /her mate child B what was in the papers?

I'm confused....

There are always two dates for the CSSE exam, the main date and the reserve date for those who are ill or feel unable to sit an exam on a Saturday for religious reasons. The two sets of papers have always been different for as long as most of us can remember. Normally, the reserve date is used only for those two reasons (although last September about 20 of the hundred or so Southend / Westcliff 'second sitters' were from a school which had helpfully booked its year 6 residential for the weekend of the main sitting ) and the numbers are significantly less than on the main date. However, this year the CSSE stated on its website near the end of the registration period firstly that some venues were full on the main date,then that all were and parents should book for the reserve date.

Ah thank you - all clear now

I can confirm that the second paper was a completely different passage from a completely different book. I know both books very well and would say that the second paper used a harder text but the questions could well have been easier. Students I know of found both papers very straightforward, especially the first one as they had done the passage chosen before in a published practice paper.

So there was no advantage at all and possibly disadvantage to those who did the paper on the backup date. DG