standard of maths in real Kent 11+ v. practice NFER papers

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abracadabra

standard of maths in real Kent 11+ v. practice NFER papers

Post by abracadabra »

Do you know how the difficulty and content of the NFER Nelson mock test papers compares with the real maths paper used in the Kent Age 11 assessment?

NFER sets the Kent assessment so I have bought the NFER Nelson
practice test papers from this website. I am saving them until later this term as there are only four of them, and test is in January.

A tutor has told me that the best practice material to use in the meantime is the Bond Maths Assessment papers age 9`-10 ( she says the 10-11 ones are unnecessarily difficult).

But the thing that is confusing me is that the level of difficulty and topics covered in the practice test papers are much harder than the Bond Age 9-10 material. Have I been misinformed by the tutor, is the real test easier than the practice papers, or is it not necessary to get that many right to pass?

My son can get 100% on the Bond 9-10 papers on a good day, but I would guess that on the hardest of the practice papers his mark would be more likely in the 40% -70% range. There are topics on the practice papers such as algebra which he is unlikely to have covered at KS2 at his state primary school by the time of the exam. What do you all think?
Mum

NFER v's 11+

Post by Mum »

Hi

I don't live in Kent, but it may help you to know that my daughter started practising the Maths Bond Assessment Papers in January, for her test at the end of this year. She has been scoring between 70 - 100 % depending upon which area the papers focussed on. We did the 3rd (9-10) and the 4th (10-11) papers, and these were great for identifying gaps in her knowledge. Unfortunately we discovered you can't rely upon schools to cover everything necessary before the test!

Anyway, to move on to the NFER, we have done 2 papers to date. The first was a real shock in terms of format after doing the Bond Papers, and my daughter scored 37/50. My daughter was very upset, felt a failure and wanted to give up. We worked through the questions that she had got wrong and four days later, she sat a second NFER test and her mark increased to 45/50. I would say that it is important not to leave it too late before you introduce your son to his first NFER. If he does score lowish then you will need time to build his confidence back up.

I ordered the IPS papers, these are 30 minute papers with 30 questions and give a good variety of the same type of wordy questions that appear in NFER.

Incidentally, even on the first NFER paper sat, I found that the questions which I didn't think my daughter would have a clue about, she answered with ease.

Hope that this helps. Good Luck
camin

Post by camin »

Dear 'Mum' Guest,

Has your daughter tried Bond and Nfer VR papers? How did you feel about them? We used Bond for preparation and my daughter is doing ok. We tried Nfer paper a few days ago and the result was not satisfied. I'm not sure wether to try another Nfer or to practice some IPS questions first then go back to Nfer. Your thoughts on this will be highly appreciated.
Mum

NFER'S Vs Bond

Post by Mum »

Hi Camin

Re Bond VR. My daughter completed 3rd and 4th books and was achieving around the 80 % mark. We then switched to Susan J Daughtrey, Verbal Reasoning Technique and Practice Books 1-4. These give strategies for completing the different types of questions (35 in all). When we then did the Bond 5th papers we found that even though these are much harder than the 4th, her mark increased to around 90% (highest 94%). We then did 2 NFER papers. The first score was 75/85, the second was 79/85. (93%).

We haven't done IPS Verbal Reasoning, so I don't know whether these are helpful. But, although you don't say how long you have before your test, my daughter and I definitely found the Technique and Practice Books a real help in improving her marks. You could try a second NFER, as it could have been the format that was offputting, and if you have time work through the Techniques and Practice. They are split into different types - 1&2 cover English type questions and 3 & 4 Maths types. If time is tight, pick the ones that cover the areas which give the most trouble to do first. WH Smith stock them, can give ISBN codes if needed.
Guest

Post by Guest »

Before you go buying, look at posts between Mike Edwards and Patricia under Verbal Reasoning
camin

Post by camin »

Thanks 'Mum' Guest and Guest.

4 weeks to the exam. Really need to sort this out.

The problem my daughter had with 1st Nfer paper was that she didn't finish it. I may have over emphasized that 'this is the real thing' before she started. Anyway, this is a valueale lesson for us and I think we'll try another Nfer paper to see what would happen.
Mum

Post by Mum »

Hi Camin

Sounds like a problem with strategy. The key is finding the questions that cause the trouble so that you can give strategies for solving these. As with most exams, the biggest problem is often spending too long on weak areas, and not leaving enough time for those that she is good at. Go through the NFER paper with her that she has done first, get her to finish it (if you haven't done this already), and see if you can identify problem areas from this - also any that were wrong, try to work out if these were down to knowledge, or spelling, maths ability. You can't do much about knowlege but it does help to go through the ones your daughter got wrong and why. It's also worth comparing with her how the NFER questions were presented on the Bond papers. On our first NFER, my daughter got a whole section wrong because it was presented in a slightly different format to the one she was used to on the Bond Papers. She felt very silly when we pointed this out, repeated this section and got them all right.

Mum
Guest

Re: standard of maths in real Kent 11+ v. practice NFER pape

Post by Guest »

abracadabra wrote:Do you know how the difficulty and content of the NFER Nelson mock test papers compares with the real maths paper used in the Kent Age 11 assessment?

NFER sets the Kent assessment so I have bought the NFER Nelson
practice test papers from this website. I am saving them until later this term as there are only four of them, and test is in January.

A tutor has told me that the best practice material to use in the meantime is the Bond Maths Assessment papers age 9`-10 ( she says the 10-11 ones are unnecessarily difficult).

But the thing that is confusing me is that the level of difficulty and topics covered in the practice test papers are much harder than the Bond Age 9-10 material. Have I been misinformed by the tutor, is the real test easier than the practice papers, or is it not necessary to get that many right to pass?

My son can get 100% on the Bond 9-10 papers on a good day, but I would guess that on the hardest of the practice papers his mark would be more likely in the 40% -70% range. There are topics on the practice papers such as algebra which he is unlikely to have covered at KS2 at his state primary school by the time of the exam. What do you all think?
My son did the Medway test in January 2007. I used the Bond Maths 10-11 book that has 25 question papers with 50 questions per paper.

My son practiced as far as paper 12 in the book as well as the standard NFER packs, you get from WHE Smith, that everybody else uses.

Although Maths is my son's strongest subject, he said he finished the test paper in the real exam with about 10 minutes to spare. He also thought the real 11+ maths paper was easier than the test papers in the Bond book. He scored over 120 in the real 11+ maths test.

I recommend you get the Bond 10-11 book, yes there are some tough questions, but the sheer breadth of the questions means your child will be prepared for anything.
Embleton

Post by Embleton »

My daughter practised on both the Nfer and Bond papers and her raw scores were similar on each. She also scored in excess of 120 in her 11+ test. What she did say though was that the Nfer questions were set out in a clearer and more friendly looking way than the Bond questions and this made the Nfer test seem easier than the Bond ones although there was really little difference between them in reality.
kentmum1

Post by kentmum1 »

I prepared my son with the Bond 10-11 book just before he started his tutoring last year. The tutor's verdict was that the book was too far ahead of the exams. He put him back a book on the 9-10 (book 3) but also did lots of NFER papers and some key stage 3 maths. My son found the maths test easy on the day (have not yet had result!) and said it was more like the 9-10 book. However, I think it's worth taking them through the 10-11 book (as I did, despite tutor's advice!) as test difficulty varies year on year. Better to over prepare than under prepare! I also found the Bond "How to do 11+ maths" (tutor highly approves of book too) a brilliant revision tool in the last 8 weeks. This really helped bring the whole thing together.
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