St. Paul's Boys admission - our experience

[Guest55]

Has the OP got permission to share the details of the exam?

[expat]

I am stunned by such high expectations of 10 year olds, scholarship material or not.

How would you propose to distinguish between scholarship candidates, if not by giving them questions which only a very few would be able to answer?

I think I would be looking for creativity, divergent thinking, a 'spark' of some kind, which maybe could even be demonstrated in a rather less rigid and stereotypical 'bright kid' kind of way, to be honest, and may even give some who hadn't spent their childhood being tutored an outside chance of success.

I'm sorry you believe that solving these types of problems when you haven't seen them before doesn't require creativity or divergent thinking. I know many mathematicians who would disagree with you. And, as I indicated earlier, I believe it is much less likely that problems of this level of difficulty would be tutored for than problems which are more "accessible" to the general population.

I also suspect that a child who answers this type of question correctly is setting themselves up for a very interesting interview with an interviewer who might want to determine whether the child is indeed that exceptional or has merely seen the material before.

[solimum]

There is a way of generating the answer one digit at a time without the algebra and modulo arithmetic which very few 10 year olds would be up to

(Confession: (I didn't work this out - I was working on a rather more cumbersome method involving adding the number to 9 times itself (getting 10 times itself which is easy - just shifted one place to the right) then working out one digit at a time what the digits would need to be. I would have got there in the end, honest guv )

but if you write out .........9 time 9 the answer must end in a 1 (9x9 =81)

which means the original number ends in .......19

so work out ......19 times 9 it must end in 71 (the 8 carried from the previous term, plus 1 x 9)

which means the original number ends in ....719


rinse and repeat ....

(see here for an example with the same problem but with 2 rather than 9 https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... th-grader/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

but I must say most people would give up or make a fatal mistake well before 44 digits! Definitely a Maths Challenge type question, or one to give to a group to experiment with on a Friday afternoon...

[Elky]

I can't say for certain, but I would imagine that this question was set so that the examiners could look at how the children tackled a seemingly insoluble problem rather than because they expected anyone to get it right. Did they try once or twice, get it wrong and give up? Did they have a logical way of trying to find the answer (even if not successful)? Did they plug away at it even though they clearly didn't understand? Did they just skip it? Did they etc etc etc.

All these approaches (and there are lots of others) might possibly tell you something about a child, in combination with the other papers and questions that they did know how to tackle. If anyone actually got it right I imagine any school would be falling over themselves to offer a place!!

[ellefdo]

Has the OP got permission to share the details of the exam?

I do not believe I require a permission to share the details of an exam where the admission process for the year has been completed and offers made - I deliberately waited until offers were made so that there was no question of another student taking the exam later in the process who could benefit unfairly.

I took the time out of a very busy schedule to write this out for a very specific reason. All the independent schools speak of widening access. Yet, it is impossible for the average parent who does not have access to expensive tutors to have any idea of what level the exam consists of. The school sent a document that they said should be used for preparation for the second written exam - that consisted of essentially the maths / English KS2 syllabus, meaning it was of very limited use.

Tutors who advertise as experts in preparation for the top independent schools already have the kind of information I have written about based on information given out by students they tutor over the years and they charge on average 90 to 150 pounds per hour to divulge this kind of information.

I hope parents who cannot afford that kind of money also can gain some sense of what the examination consists of in a more real sense - so that their sons also have a chance to compete at a very slightly more level playing field.

[nylon14]

Thank you. Apologies for not writing sooner. Many parents hold tight to information and it is lovely that you have shared this with us.

[Guest55]

Are you completely sure no military fanilies might not be tested? I thought exam questions were copyright.

[Amber]

I hope parents who cannot afford that kind of money also can gain some sense of what the examination consists of in a more real sense - so that their sons also have a chance to compete at a very slightly more level playing field.

I think that is kind of you.
I am pretty shocked by what is required tbh, and also the idea that the hard scholarship-sift question would lead to 'an interesting interview'. These are 10-year olds! Who would want their child put through that kind of challenging interrogation?

I am not sure whether to post this but will anyway. I know very well someone who went to this school a good few years ago. He has always been, shall we say, full of self-belief and assured of his own worth, even querying decisions not to give him a job after interviews, challenging his final degree grade etc, and assuming others had made a mistake and he deserved better. This could of course just be his own personality, and I am sure it is different at the school from how it was 20 years ago; but I am wondering whether some of this has come from going to a school which made him feel that he quite genuinely is better than other people.

[Loopyloulou]

I didn't realise that you and George Osborne were such good friends Amber!

[Surferfish]

Tutors who advertise as experts in preparation for the top independent schools already have the kind of information I have written about based on information given out by students they tutor over the years and they charge on average 90 to 150 pounds per hour to divulge this kind of information.

Just one question. How does one train and qualify to become one of these tutors!?