11 Plus Exams Forum

I fear this has been asked before but ...

Can anyone summarise the Tiffin Girl's exam format and which practice papers are the best to use.

The best paper to use is " NferNelson" which can be bought at Whsmith. Good luck.

Dear Dad23

I cannot help on the NVR discipline.

However the VR is identical to the Bucks test. 21 types of questions, test published by GL assessment [formally NFER]

Although you would only have 1 VR test which would cover 12 types from the bank of 21.

Take a look at the following thread re which papers to buy.

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... php?t=4782

Patricia

Hi geling

How is it going?

Hi, Surreymum, I posted my anwser under " Tiffin boy homework" thread to avoid getting any " off topic " warning.

Thanks for the very useful replies.

My girl has done some VR/NVR stuff at school so it's not completely new to her and I'd say she is reasonably capable at it.

A year ago we discounted Tiffins because of the general myth that you had to be a genius to do this exam and have a very specialised tutor from the age of 3 (booked before birth!) etc

With 2 months to go I'm reviewing that decision and thinking along these lines

- do you gain that much more by doing 200 of these papers as opposed to 20/30
- your child either gets it by then or she doesn't and it's all down to the day in question
- a year+ is too long for any child to have to look at this stuff anyway!
- by adopting a short sharp strategy it's not a misery if she does not succeed for all concerned
- she only does it if she likes the school enough herself and is prepared to go for it with my help

Is 2 months of focus a realistic timescale and am I bound to failure without the inside knowledge from the specialised tutor?

Any thoughts people?

Hi dad23

Unfortunately I think the answer to most of your questions is 'it depends'. Elsewhere on this forum you will read about intense tuition for Tiffin of the type you have referred to.
In my experience lots of the girls there have been quite heavily tutored (eg easter to november the year of the exam).
However, I know of 2 children who passed in 2008 with much less preparation - by which I mean doing some practise papers over the summer (one per week) , having 4 tutoring sessions in the autumn to address any areas of weakness and then just going for it. For reference both these girls showed little improvement after mid October.
The problem of course with all of this is that hindsight is 20/20 vision! If DD had not passed no doubt we would be kicking ourselves for not having started earlier/done more. That said I would have hated to have tutored her into oblivion only for her to get in and then struggle.
I think you have to go with your gut feel, based on your knowledge of your DD's strengths and how she reacts to pressure/learning etc. Decide how much you/she wants it and what you are prepared to do to get it, then play it by ear.
I'm sorry if this advice is not very helpful but I guess at the end of the day if there was a magic formula someone would have patented it by now!
Good luck

Hi Dad23

I think you should go for it. If your dd is familiar with it all, then its not so bad. However, I think you need to organise your time well and try to get as much done as possible over the next two months.

Luckily, Tiffin has one of the later exams... more time to prep! A tutor is not essential. A competent tutor is a rare find these days! Most tutors will cram in every single of type of VR question they can find, but NFER exams are much more systematic than that.

Which books/publishers have you covered so far?

Thanks for the very sensible and measured replies.

I know that she has seen enough of Mr(s) Bond and I also know Bond is not the right type for Tiffins (too easy, wrong type of Q etc). I'm sure she has done a few NFER also and various other stuff but none with a pure focus on Tiffins.

So after seeing the school tonight and measuring her interest/motivation we'll come to a decision over the weekend.

dad23,

All I can say is go for it.

I know a boy who started doing these VR, NVR practice papers late in September, tutored by his dad and made into Tiffin boys and is enjoying. This was even without any previous exposure to any of these papers from his primary school or at home. This was some 3 years ago.

In my view, it mainly depends on the capability of the child and the help that mum/dad can provide especially on the technical aspects of these tests.

If you are up for it then no looking back. Good luck.

Gilly