Day 2 Maths and Writing Exercise

[imd]

I think it's great there's a forum such as this, where we worrying parents can vent our concerns, and shield our children from them. I also believe what will be will be, but inside am churning about the fact my son ran out of time in maths, and left the last 15 questions!!
New to here, a great find

[scarlett]

Ahhhh they might be the ridiculously hard questions at the end which everyone gets wrong anyway. You only need to get about half right to pass..not sure how many questions are in this years paper ?

[mystery]

yes just think, if you got the first half right, and then guessed your way through the whole of the second half, you could still get 140 on a lucky day!!

[imd]

My son said 50. I guess better to be slower and methodical and hopefully get more correct, than rush through, (I'm telling myself!). He did say over halfway got def harder. Knowing my boy, he got engrossed and forgot the time and possibly where he was!

[bulu]

OK, I know it means nothing but DS said the maths paper was the toughest he'd ever done, and that it was nothing like the GL practice ones we did at home.

From the descriptions given of the questions by various friends children, it does sound a bit peculiar! Sorry oocs!

[JLT]

It's a test which is there to discriminate. It needs to (as accurately as is possible) work out who are the top 25% of the population, and it also needs to be useful to the superselectives in siphoning off the top few.

The point I was making is that DS getting 141 in CATS puts him in the top 1% of the country, so I'm concerned that he is then finding a hard a test that is working out the top 25%!

[mystery]

Yes, well you can get 140 in the 11+ and not have got everything right. If he's that able at maths, he probably is very aware of the questions he finds tricky or can't do. And there are loads of people who say an exam was hard and come out with a great mark. They can't formulate a paper which all people who get 141 in CATs report back as being "hard". Wait until you get his result to see if he really did find it hard (relative to others that is). I'm sure he didn't. It's unlikely with 141 (in which CATs?) that he did in reality find it hard.

The trouble is that able kids get used to getting 100% right at school, and then they get 11+ practice at home which gets them to a high percentage right, but in reality the exam will have stuff in it that most children will find hard / can't do. It's a bit like getting some university exam practice early on. It's no different from sitting an IQ test really - there'll be stuff there that most people can't do or it wouldn't be a good test.

[neurotic kent mum]

I think it's great there's a forum such as this, where we worrying parents can vent our concerns, and shield our children from them.

I do agree - but just not now. If we all sat the exam at the same time I would be happy. But we don't . And I know everyone finds different areas difficult. but i could look at all these posts and give helpful advice to my child. Those that do the tests later do better proportionally - why hand them even more advantage . Why say anything until saturday?

[katel]

"but i could look at all these posts and give helpful advice to my child. "

Could you? I can't imagine how!

[bulu]

So far we've had maths was really hard, OK, easier than the practice papers, harder than the practice papers, nothing like the practice papers, half was OK but half was difficult...

I really wouldn't get anything out of that to advise my child with!