Please can someone kindly help on whats the acceptable pass mark or percentage to aim for in the 11+ admission tests for Independent Schools?

This will vary enormously according to the academic level of the school and the calibre of the applicants.

Which school are you looking at? DG

We have applied for NLCS, Habs, StAlbans.

St Albans will be the most straightforward to get into.

I would estimate pass mark in the 60s for Maths and slightly higher for English.

Make sure that Creative Writing is strong as being able to express yourself clearly is very important in GCSEs

About 300 girls apply for 60 places but many will have it as backup for other schools such as NLCS and Habs and Highgate so there will be places turned down.

Habs girls has a much broader appeal and lots of dds come from North London. 600 girls apply for around 120 places.

Lots of focus on English as there is a second English paper on a range of writing formats as well as the comprehension.

The interview is very key. Girls with weaker exam results will be given a chance at interview. The mark to get to interview will depend on how many apply this year.

I would say slightly higher than St Albans, possibly low 70s.

NLCS are very big on inference. Any dd not able to cope with inference in the comprehension will not get to interview so make sure that you are doing papers that have this feature.

I would say as much as mid 70s in the English paper, lower in the Maths paper as it is easier to bring Maths upto a stronger level than it is English.

Every year NLCS has called more girls back for interview after the first set of interviews so if you don't get to interview keep the phone handy as you might get a call to come in for an interview with very little notice. 5pm in the evening for a 9am interview the next day.

NCLS do not call many back for interview as writing their own English paper has enabled them to weed out those who can't do inference before interview.

What subject is your dd's strong point? DG

Thank you so much for your detailed answer Daogroupie.

DD is slightly ahead in Maths, are there any specific books we need to be practicing for these exams?

The different schools may also have different marking schemes for the same subjects. At NLCS, we were told that, within reason, they would look through spelling and punctuation mistakes to the underlying ideas in an essay. My inference is that they allocate fewer marks to SPaG than some other schools.