Teaching GL Verbal Reasoning

[anansiathespider]

Does anyone have any views on how 'The Official 11+' practice papers published by GL-assessment rate in terms of difficulty please?

I had a look through them in Waterstones, and they look quite 'easy' (relatively!) for entry to a super selective.

TIA.

[Walthams]

They are middle range in terms of difficulty. Madeline Guyon, Walsh are harder. If your child is fining GL easy and scoring in the 90s, then they are already very good.

[Daogroupie]

The GL papers that are sold do not reflect the difficulty level of the ones that are used in the super selectives.

Students always comment after the QE exam that the GL papers used are much harder than the ones they have prepared with. DG

[anansiathespider]

Thanks for your reply. It's not my child scoring 90% (but well done that boy!), but they looked 'easier' than some of the papers that I printed off online.

I'll have a look at Walsh as DG also recommended.

Many thanks once again.

[dubious73]

DC is scoring well on Bond 10-11+ VR papers but I've been told on here they are too easy for GL?! We are DIY so probably not going to stand much chance against such savy parents/tutors!

[Walthams]

You can diy siccessfully if you are able to do it, are prepared to work hard and know which materials to use. Will cost you lots of time, effort and work but can be done. Tutors simply do that job for the parents, because most parents do not have time or are not able to do that themselves. But if you are determined and feel able,then you will stand equal chance against tutored children. If your child is scoring in the 90s from Bond, then it's already very promising.

[Daogroupie]

There are lots and lots of parents who work with their own students who then do very well.

It is all about time and committment. Year after year I see parents pop up on here, ask lots of questions, become very experienced and then mostly their students secure a place.

If you are prepared to put in the work then it is possible to have the right outcome. There are parents who prefer to have tutors do it for them. Some of them are just not interested enough to do it, some of them don't feel able to do it, some of them would rather have fun with their students than work with them.

But there is no reason that a parent cannot be very successful working with their student. All the materials are there and easy to get hold of in the forum shop or on Amazon or in Smiths or Waterstones. DG

[dubious73]

Thanks for the encouraging words DG. The doubt sets in when you think you're on track using certain books (i.e. Bonds) this late in the game for Latymer, then told you aren't. Last thing I or I assume many parents want is to set their DC up to fail.

[Daogroupie]

You are not late in the game.

There are parents who have not even started yet who will kick in at some point and still manage to help their student get a place.

Doing Bond papers will certainly help to improve VR skills but I would not continue with any paper that a student was scoring in the 90s in.

You need to be doing papers where there are things for a student to learn and timings for them to get to grips with.

I would not recommend letting a student get too confident with high marks in one style of paper. Move onto another style, there is a huge amount of VR material out there to work with. DG

[anansiathespider]

I think I've got the hang of it now.

The practice books and papers are to help children become very familiar with particular question types so that they are able to hit the ground running in the exam when the questions are of predictable types, but harder than they're used to.

Thank you.