CCHS CEM mocks

[nykesina]

This is too late now but just wondering….. I had some bereavement in the family and totally forgot to book any mocks for DD. She just completed her CEM Chelmsford exam and was a Bit upset that she didn’t finish because she overestimated the time she had. She thinks it’s because I didn’t book any mock exam. anyone else have this experience now or n the past. I feel so bad.

[PerpetualStudent]

Hi nykesina,

Please don’t beat yourself up over this. Some DC find mocks useful for getting used to a formal testing environment and working under pressure but many DC sitting the 11+ will never have done a mock. My own DD never sat a mock (didn’t know they existed) and yet did well in her 11+. Anyway, the most useful practice is done at home getting used to working under timed conditions to get exam technique right.

I don’t know the CCHS exam but CEM is generally designed to be too long to finish in the time. They use the time pressure to help differentiate the students. Ideally you wouldn’t leave any unanswered questions, guessing or randomly answering to just get something down. This gives you the chance of a few extra marks (or none at all). But ultimately, not finishing is par for the course, I think. It isn’t the end of the world or even the end of your DD’s chances of getting an offer.

I expect your DD is just venting because she is stressed and upset. Don’t feel bad.

HTH,
PS

[CM3_dad]

i would advise you do several mock style papers under the time conditions that is set at home. Not finishing means you have left some questions that you might have known how to do and got right. There are some questions which are harder than others, some you will know, some you wont, some you can work out after a long time, some which you need to double check. I would say learn to allocate enough time per question to answer all the questions. Leave out the questions you think are too hard. Guess at it, and move on.Come back to it at the end if you have time. DO the same with questions that you haven't got a quick way of doing. At the end of the day, hard or easy, each question is worth 1 mark. We have no idea what the raw pass mark will be, but it is guaranteed you wont need to get them all right. My dd got a great score. I reckon she would have got in without doing the mock paper i set her, but I can tell you this, she was definitely better at it after doing several mock papers. If you dont have practice papers, message me privately and i can help you out.

[hermanmunster]

i would advise you do several mock style papers under the time conditions that is set at home. Not finishing means you have left some questions that you might have known how to do and got right. There are some questions which are harder than others, some you will know, some you wont, some you can work out after a long time, some which you need to double check. I would say learn to allocate enough time per question to answer all the questions. Leave out the questions you think are too hard. Guess at it, and move on.Come back to it at the end if you have time. DO the same with questions that you haven't got a quick way of doing. At the end of the day, hard or easy, each question is worth 1 mark. We have no idea what the raw pass mark will be, but it is guaranteed you wont need to get them all right. My dd got a great score. I reckon she would have got in without doing the mock paper i set her, but I can tell you this, she was definitely better at it after doing several mock papers. If you dont have practice papers, message me privately and i can help you out.

I think the OP's daughter has already done the test

[PipeDream]

Hi OP, hope you and your daughter are feeling ok now. I reckon any past papers you did sort of count as mocks anyway. If it makes you feel better, when we did past papers for CSSE we didn't realise that 10 min reading time meant you couldn't start paper if you didn't need all 10 mins to read so my DD thrown in exam by that, she'd got quite used to the extra 5 mins writing time. My fault entirely but it is done now, trying not to feel too guilty!