11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi

Just wondering if anyone has noticed that the Bond papers are more difficult than other test papers.

My daughter has been doing really well on practice papers for NVR at school (about 80% ish). She did the Bond one today and didn't finish two of the sections - only getting 33% on one of them. Her overall score was 68% as she did do very well on two other sections but it seems to have knocked her confidence a bit despite me reassuring her all afternoon!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Hello, NVR papers vary wildly. We have had the most trouble with NVR. We seem to have cracked it now but at the start we could not even work them out when we had the answers. It may well be that your dc encountered types that she had not seen before. Signposts is a type that only turns up in certain papers. Can you find out from school what type she was doing there? I am sure by the time you do the four Bond papers the marks will pick up as you will adjust to the new type. I believe that NVR is a skill that your brain adjusts to. I thought I would never come to grips with it but I have now. Just keep at it and I am sure your dc will find the same.

Also there is a separate place to post on NVR and it is quite liively so I would recommend you ask the mods to move your post there.

There has been much discussion in the past on this site regarding Bond v other papers. My dd actually achieved better on the Bond papers - I think this is because the difficulty of the questions are mixed whereas other papers where the first question is the easiest, becoming more and more difficult, totally put her off. She felt once she couldn't do one question the rest of the paper was beyond her.

Its a good idea to always to a mixture of different papers, different publishers, as long as they are relevant (ie. multiple choice).

I would aim for 80%+ personally, to feel confident going into the exam. You still have several weeks of practice and it might be timing thats the issue, not the difficulty of the questions.

Good luck.

Last year we had the same issue - used Bond towards the end of the holiday and having found nfer fine she initially found Bond harder. I think it was just the change of paper. So really it was a good thing to do.