Does tutoring have any effect on verbal reasoning scores?

[mystery]

Let's say you took a full-blown IQ test with an Educational Psychologist. You'd come back with something saying "your standardised score was x, and we can say with 95% confidence that your actual score lies between y and z". This is to allow for the fact that no test is 100% accurate, and that your performance might vary slightly from occasion to occasion.

However, in the 11 plus, the standardised score is just given to you without a confidence interval, and an arbitrary cut-off score is decided on to fill the available places. Now the confidence intervals (the gap between y and z) will overlap for a lot of scores.

So let's say the pass standardised score was 120. A child scoring 119 would fail, but it could well be that is "actual score" was towards the top of his confidence interval (who knows?) and a child who passed with 120 could have an "actual score" towards the bottom of his confidence interval (again, who knows?) so it could be that the more able child failed and the less able child passed.

No test is perfect. This is another reason why the 11plus is an abomination if the child who doesn't pass does not get the sort of education he would have benefited from as a result ...... another good argument for comprehensives I'm afraid.

[fatbananas]

I see. Thanks for that. And, yes, hence all the stressful appeal threads.

[sbarnes]

from our experience I tutored my child on the 20 odd VR type questions. This was needed as this type of question is not taught at school. For those saying that an un-tutored child will get it straight away, well I frankly don't believe that in the vast majority of cases. There are always the tiniest minority that are naturally gifted, no doubt destined for GCHQ service.

After tutoring the child, we then set about practice. The more practice one does in anything, the better one gets at it and therefore quicker. The main aim is speed and accuracy.

Tutoring and continued practice most definitely has a positive effect on VR scores in my opinion.

This is just based on our experience.

[fairyelephant]

For what it's worth I think that tutoring or practice in verbal reasoning can definitely improve scores. Since getting to grips with the different types over the last few weeks my son's scores have leapt dramatically, confidence and familiarity make such a difference. Most schools discourage excessive tutoring and say that not much preparation is required but in practice that isn't going to cut the mustard unless your child is a genius. Is it just that schools have to be seen to defend their tests or do they really believe what they preach? It is concerning that some dps may go away thinking they don't need to prepare their dc, which for many will lead to disappointment.

[mystery]

Yes - but that was for a particular type of verbal reasoning paper. It is harder to prepare for the more "surprise" version of verbal ability - but not impossible.

[mystery]

It's a good test of whether parents are prepared to believe the school or not .... many of the ones that believe the school won't get a place!

[fairyelephant]

I agree mystery, I'm preparing ds for both CEM style and traditional vr, but with help from this site even the surprise style can be a little less surprising! Fingers crossed anyway....

[studio1972]

I think a test of verbal ability alone is a poor entry test --- it's like the Bucks test that is being phased out.

The verbal reasoning tests include many mathematical and logical type questions, they do not test the verbal ability alone. There is a great benefit in the child fully understanding how to answer the different types of questions, as they can be hard to understand initially. I think very few children could pass without a fair amount of preparation.

[pheasantchick]

Yes, tutoring/preparation does improve scores. They know what to look for, tricks of the trade, and gains confidence in doing them. Also, by practicing, exam technique is improves such as speed, accuracy, etc, so this helps scores also.