11 Plus Exams Forum

My DD will be taking the kent practice test this saturday. I would like advise on what the format of the day would be. Would there be breaks between session and for how long. I already know the papers would not be marked as i read this on one of the threads.

Just want a general idea of what to expect on the day. Anything would help.

thanks.

My daughter took the 11+ in January 08, when we arrived we registered and were ushered into the school hall, then the children were collected by an adjudicator and taken to classrooms to do the tests, my daughter was placed with other the 2 children from her school.

They had breaks between exams and were taken back to the hall for these. She took a snack, these were left in the hall. She took a bottle of water and a tin of mints into the exam with her.

She was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience - obviously going in expecting the worst, I'm sure that it must vary from venue to venue but every effort was taken to put the children at ease and when she came to take the real test she had the same adjudicator in the same classroom so there were no nasty surprises -(except for any in the test of course!)

I hope this helps, i've put down the details as I remember them, but it does seem a long time ago now!

Best of luck to your DC!

DS took the eleven plus last year. Same thing really.The practice was a pleasant experience for him - they were NFER practice papers as I remember so no surprises. (He enjoyed writing the English Task too)
However, the actual tests a week later, he found harder - they seemed to have stepped things up a little and he barely finished 2 papers, didn't have time to check and didn't finish the verbal reasoning by a page.
He came out saying he could have done better and spent the next 6 weeks telling everyone he had probably failed, although very relieved it was all over.
(In the event he got a very high score and scored maximum 140 on the paper he didn't finish and is now a happy boy at Judd.)
If yours comes out of the practice feeling confident that's great, but you could warn them that it may be a little tougher next Sat but that everyone would find that too and that you have to get everything right or even finish to do well.
Good Luck!

sorry, trespassing here from Glos, but since the panic is building, I'm sort of everywhere.
Anyway, OOC, intrigued, can you explain how one can get max scores without finishing the paper?? Do they just not give marks above a certain number, in this case 140??
thanks.

it's a standardised score Milla.

yoyo123 wrote:it's a standardised score Milla.

Sorry to sound dumb but not sure I understand either. If you don't finish a paper are you not penalised in any way?

Any guidance would be appreciated

Milla - it's generally understood that 140 (highest mark) in a Kent paper equates roughly to 75%. Therefore, it's theoretically possible to only do three quarters of a paper but get 140. 75% may seem low, but I gather this is because children tend not to perform as well in real test conditions as they do at home.

I know my DS said he had to guess quite a few questions in the Kent VR test as he ran out of time and realised he wasn't going to finish the paper (and he was generally good at working to time in practice) but he still got 138.

Villagedad - I've never known anyone be penalised for not finishing any exam, except in the sense that they can't get marks for questions they haven't answered. You certainly wouldn't lose marks for not answering a question, you just gain marks for correct answers.

Thanks to everyone for their response. Some very good suggestions. especially the fact that the actual exams appeared tougher than the practice. I will be including a pack of mints in the pack lunch.

thanks everyone. still very nervous.

Goodness. It's got to be said it's all rather confusing.
note to self, must buy mints!