Moray House - what's the best preparation?

[herty]

That's really helpful, ebf3 - do you have any suggestions how one could prepare one's child for those sorts of questions (other than just reading widely)?

Thanks.

[chicko-mum]

Oh wow. No wonder friend's ds found paper hard compared to the papers he'd practised with. That's really useful to know. Thank you. Think I'll try covering up the instructions to see if dd can work out question, otherwise I suppose we'll be working on spotting question types as well as how to answer them! I suppose a broad vocab is even more important if this is the case.
What else can they throw at these DCs I wonder?

[ebf3]

I think possibly the best advice was that given to me by a friend whose children went to DAO years ago. 'Buy every type of practice paper going and do them all'! I would now add to this by saying get the child to figure out how to tackle the question rather thanjust depend on instructions. It's about spotting links and patterns - eg they're all types of ****** except for that one, and the answer was linked to the odd one out by******. We did Athey, Bond and NFER, but if I was doing it again I would look even more widely, and start serious work earlier than we did.

Vocabulary needed was of a type common to verbal reasoning papers, so you are likely to come across the words you need if you do lots of papers and talk though errors. Collect words you don't know and go over them - including how to spell them. Possible spelling issues are mostly of the doubling/ not doubling letters and errors in vowel sounds rather than long complex words. We count ourselves very lucky to have got through as DS is very careless with spelling, and especially struggles with these two areas.

We know quite a few people who have sat the tests recently and I was very disappointed that no-one had thought to tell me how the format differed from the practice tests available. I hope it helps you.

[herty]

Thanks for taking the time to pass your knowledge/experiences on.

[chicko-mum]

I ditto Herty's post.

We know quite a few people who have sat the tests recently and I was very disappointed that no-one had thought to tell me how the format differed from the practice tests available. I hope it helps you.

I too have found very little advice/guidance forthcoming from parents whose older DCs have gone through the selective process (with the exception of this forum of course). Perhaps they are concerned people will think it's less of an achievement if the process is demystified? I certainly wouldn't - the dedication and effort required by these young people (and their parents ) is huge. So your help is very much appreciated.

[KS10]

Possibly if they have younger children they are worried about their chances of getting in if they give away too much, assuming no sibling policy. I'm sure we all know people like this.

[magwich2]

If you want any help with the moray house papers you might as well try to contact tutors via the Warwickshire forum because many of them had the full set at one time.
Since the Warwickshire exam moved to its rather less corrupt format there has been little call for these papers in our County.
I believe that at one time the going rate for the full set was around £3k but my figures could be out of date!

[herty]

Am absolutely stunned.

£3000 to buy your child 100% in the VR paper.

What the **** is wrong with Hertfordshire that we still use these papers???!!!

[nat]

[nat]

I have found the following on the WHSmith website:
Moray House Tests: v. 98: Test Pack of 20 (Moray House Verbal Reasoning)
The price is £32
What do you think? These are different to the special ones the tutors get?