Calderdale pretest

Post by **mitasol** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:18 pm

so why can't see do it when she does the papers!

I do think nerves play a big part when sitting the test. If one or two questions are difficult and they panic then everything falls apart. Remind them that some of the questions will be difficult. If they find them hard, then everyone is finding them hard. They must not panic and keep trying.

I'm probably just stating the obvious!

optimistic! · Post by **optimistic!** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:01 am

mitasol wrote:
so why can't see do it when she does the papers!
I do think nerves play a big part when sitting the test. If one or two questions are difficult and they panic then everything falls apart. Remind them that some of the questions will be difficult. If they find them hard, then everyone is finding them hard. They must not panic and keep trying.

I'm probably just stating the obvious!

Thanks Mitasol, sound advice there.

How is the preparation going for everybody else? Things are massively better here, DD is consistently getting good results in maths (her weaker area). DH has done a little spreadsheet for her and she can put her results in and it works out the scores compared to the pretest scores, that seems to help her with her confidence.

Post by **mitasol** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:41 am

Glad to hear she is feeling more confident and improving her results.

Improving scores is definitely the way forward!

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:42 am

Not so good here. Concentrating on the VR this week. He's getting 90 or 95% in the quick-fire or shorter on-line tests, but put it all together for 50 mins and he's lucky to get 70%. He keeps leaving questions 'cause he thinks they look hard and running out of time to go back. Every time, we go through it and discover he could have done them easily. Hopefully it's now down to just practice.

Post by **mitasol** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:10 pm

Try not to worry Haze,

Perhaps it's time to try working through each question (except Z's), no skipping allowed. See how that works out.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:59 pm

I have been noting the problem areas. That was going to be my next tactic.

You know the VR questions where two words are needed, usually one from each set of three (antonyms, synonyms and compound words)...
In the on-line test you get half a mark if one of the words is correct but, to me that means the question hasn't been understood and should be marked completely wrong. Does anyone know what happens in the real marking? Should I post this elsewhere and see if anyone knows? Or perhaps I should just refuse to give DS any credit and insist he gets both right anyway.

Post by **mitasol** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:06 pm

No credit unless both right.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:07 pm

That's what I thought it should be.

optimistic! · Post by **optimistic!** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:47 pm

Haze wrote:Not so good here. Concentrating on the VR this week. He's getting 90 or 95% in the quick-fire or shorter on-line tests, but put it all together for 50 mins and he's lucky to get 70%. He keeps leaving questions 'cause he thinks they look hard and running out of time to go back. Every time, we go through it and discover he could have done them easily. Hopefully it's now down to just practice.

70% can do it if his maths is strong though, what is his maths like? I worked out that 54% in one and 95% in the other gives a score of approximately 172 which is in the top 25% group.

It sounds like your DS is where my DD was a couple of weeks ago, once we got her to realise she had to do every question and not skip any it made a difference, hopefully it will for your DS.

Post by **mitasol** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:39 pm

I'm of the opinion that it's easier to get the additional points from VR than from the maths.

I really don't have anything to back that up- just think so!