Hi, ds did a little assessment with his tutor today and managed to do 8 of the 31 questions set in 30 mins.
He is able to do the questions, it's the one subject he gets most correct but it appears he is VERY behind time wise. (Maths and English he finished the whole papers so it's just VR that is slow at)

Does anyone have any hints and tips to pick up speed?

Any resources that could be used to help?

Thanks

Check if it is one question he got stuck on that took up the time. Remind him if he doesn’t know a question to move on. Sound like if he is ok with other parts he may have forgotten this.

If it is slowness on all check if the style of question answering is different eg is it fill in the gap rather than multiple choice and check the exam board does do it that way and not just as the tutor did. If it is the style then try out the style with other types of question he is better at to get him used to the format.

If it is just the VR doing lots of quick ten minute tests can help. Alongside chats at home, playing word games, reading, asking for 3 similes when he uses a very ordinary word etc.

I found that working through papers together helped a lot. There are 15-20 types of questions in VR, and if your child can immediately recognise the type of question, then answering it should be fairly quick. If he doesn't recognise what he's supposed to do, it might take ages to figure that out. The Bond Books give answers and explanations (others may too, but that's what we used for VR) and after working through a few age-relevant books, my daughter became very quick because it was just a matter of coming to the answer, rather than having to figure out what she needed to do to understand the question.

I think it's just a matter of practice. Whwn mine started doing papers (July for September exams in an area with a 30% qualification rate) they were only finishing half the paper, by September they were whizzing thought them, after doing a paper a week as practice.