Breaking news SW Herts has gone CEM for VR!

Eleven Plus (11+) in South West Hertfordshire

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Mgnmum
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:34 pm

Re: Breaking news SW Herts has gone CEM for VR!

Post by Mgnmum »

now this news has settled in quite a few of us are quite shocked regarding the different level of vocabulary required for this compared to the old style VR. Even the stem questions are hard, my son didnt know what superfluous meant so was totally thrown. How many 10/11 yr olds really know words like that. It appears that instead of heading to a paper that you cant learn or coach for this is heading into the hands of those who love rote learning and reciting spellings etc. Although i suppose it requires less specialised coaching it is really against those who have dyslexia or EFL
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Breaking news SW Herts has gone CEM for VR!

Post by Daogroupie »

I think the old style was rote learning. There were lots of students getting full marks in the VR who had been tutored to deliver. CEM VR is all about use of English and reading. I don't think you can rote learn CEM vocabulary, you have to be using it.

Encourage your students to actually use more interesting vocabulary in their daily speech and writing. You are competing against other ten year olds in your area. If nobody knows the word it does not matter but there are ten year olds who do use interesting word and read lots. A ten year old from Eastern Europe that has been in the country less than a year was talking to me today using very interesting vocabulary, we were talking about Tom Sawyer that he had just read in 2 days. The pass mark for CEM VR will depend on how many words the local students know. This is an area that parents can introduce into daily life quite easily and will benefit many other subjects. Geography, History and RE all have Spag questions at GCSE and even Maths now has some long word problems.

The important thing to remember is that those in the know will be at an advantage. Many still have no idea. DG
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