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the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:10 pm
by wardie
Has anyone seen the new practice papers published in the last month or so?

Having a Y5 DD I bought some (as DS used the |old ones 3 years ago) and taking a look at them they seem so much more difficult than the old ones. (or is it me getting old and the brain cells drying up :wink: )

Those old feelings of panic have surfaced.

I was wondering if it has one like the old 11A NVR? When I looked them over they all look the same, but then I'm no expert ( just an obsessive 11+er :roll: )

I would be interested to hear others views on these papers.
:D

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 1:34 pm
by mitasol
I have the new VR papers but I've only glanced through them. They're on my to-do list! :roll:

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:50 pm
by bulu
I went through the new VR Test 5 with child at the weekend and was surprised to find it contained all the HIKNOS types as well as 4 type Zs! Argh!

All four new papers contain some HIKNOS so I wonder if they might all come up in this year's Kent test.

I agree the maths papers seem different too - questions on bearings, pie charts with degrees, averages or probability rather than the old percentages, function machines with algebra, triangle dotty paper questions, misleading adverts, finding nth terms...

Sigh. Was just feeling I had got to grips with the old papers. Don't know yet if they are more difficult as have only flicked through but understand the panic. (Writing this I'm on Maths Test 5, Q38, which was easy so took username from it!!)

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:20 pm
by sherry_d
The new Letts papers arent the official ones. They have quite a few mistake too and some vague questions esp VR. We discussed it here last year. The original old papers (now GL Assessment but used to be Letts) which are now rebranded in diff packaging are the best tried and tested and come from the Official 11+ examiners. Dont make anything of these "new" Letts papers, just treat them like any other papers with a handful of mistakes too.

Also note that the old papers are exactly the same as the new official papers even though packaging is diff so those with old papers dont need to get any of now "new" rebranded GL Assessment papers.

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:45 pm
by mitasol
Hi Sherry, we are talking about the new GL papers (Pack 2) not the Letts. :) http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/books/ ... D30%23b444" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:47 pm
by sherry_d
Damn didnt realise GL had pack 2 now :oops:

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:49 pm
by mitasol
They only came out last month.

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:52 pm
by bulu
Finally plucked up the courage to open the new NVR papers (still in recovery from 11A) and found no new types and no nets of cubes. The 8 types are now named as:

Crack the Horizontal Code
Complete the Series
Find the Diagram Like the First Three
Find the Diagram Like the First Two
Complete the Grid
Complete the Pair
Crack the Vertical Code
Find the Odd One Out

The answer booklet also has an explanatory note for one question per section.

We've been using Bond books and, like VR, Bond NVR has a lot more question types.

Off to learn how to find nth term now, for new maths papers...do they actually learn that term in primary school?

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:49 pm
by frustrated
Off to learn how to find nth term now, for new maths papers...do they actually learn that term in primary school?
Yes. They do in my DS's primary school anyway, but only in a very basic way as an introduction, so worth exploring further.

Re: the NEW 'offical 11+practice papers'

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:25 pm
by Twinkle
bulu wrote:I went through the new VR Test 5 with child at the weekend and was surprised to find it contained all the HIKNOS types as well as 4 type Zs! Argh!

All four new papers contain some HIKNOS so I wonder if they might all come up in this year's Kent test.

I agree the maths papers seem different too - questions on bearings, pie charts with degrees, averages or probability rather than the old percentages, function machines with algebra, triangle dotty paper questions, misleading adverts, finding nth terms...

Sigh. Was just feeling I had got to grips with the old papers. Don't know yet if they are more difficult as have only flicked through but understand the panic. (Writing this I'm on Maths Test 5, Q38, which was easy so took username from it!!)
Is there any reason to believe that the fact that new areas are covered in the new papers is an indication that the content of the Kent tests will change bearing in mind they are not published by KCC ( I accept that it was widely thought that the old Nfer papers were the closest to the Kent test in terms of content)??