11 Plus Exams Forum

hi folks.

My DS is doing well in maths but she takes too long... for example. she did a test and got 87% but she took 18 minutes when only 10 minutes was allowed. Please can someone suggest how I can help her improve her speed? Are there any tricks to improve speed?

thanks
F4t.

Have you done a search in the Maths section for my posts on this?

Unless it is an Indy style test with no multiple choice use the advantage that having multiple choice gives.

• Depending on the style of question some can be quickly ruled out and part of the problem worked through to them pick from a couple of possible answers.
  Have excellent mental maths to do time tables and number bonds
  Know the shortcuts like 98p can be treated as £1.00 which is far quicker and easier to handle but remember that 2p in the final reckoning.
  Work out what type of question is taking the most time and work on that. If it really can’t be overcome then play to strengths and learn to skip the question
  If run out of time then mark the outstanding questions with an answer even if a guess

DD was doing the letts ten minute tests in half the time and still found Kent and Bexley pressured so working on speed will really be a huge help. Saying that in the year she did Kent she missed out 7 questions (they now have fewer questions in the Kent test I understand) but her accuracy was 100% on those she did answer so she actually scored quite well so it isn’t always the perceived disaster if they don’t finish.

My son was exactly the same. In fact even his last mock only 3 weeks before the actual exam he really struggled with timing. I would sit next time him with a stopwatch and make him do practice papers, always giving less minutes than questions. At the beginning I would prompt him when he was taking too long on the question to move to the next. My son is a perfectionist and it took a bit of work but by the end he was able to do the CGP maths 10 min tests in around 8 minutes each.

We got the results yesterday and so proud to see that he got his best marks by far in maths.

thanks for your advice, I'll use a stopwatch approach and sit next to her, if she takes too long then I'll give her a prompt.
I think I'm going to give her some easy multiplication speed test questions every now and again.... I believe this helps build up speed.

How old is she?

My DD didn't grasp 'mental maths' until into year 5 - until then she'd write every stage down in a 'show your workings' mentality - it took a while to get her out of that but once she got that she went from taking 15-18 minutes on a 10 minute test to being able to complete it in the 10 minutes.

Celebrate her accuracy as well - we were very much of the mentality it's better to complete 80% of the questions and get them all right than 100% of the paper and get 75%.