Entrance exam preperation

[filbert]

Perfect sense.. unfortunately ! Our state primary did nothing to help with the secondary transfer. Indeed I would go so far as to say any SATs results gained will reflect more the tutoring etc done by parents for the secondary transfer than the schools efforts.

You just have to judge what kind of child you have and how best to approach it. Before we started the exams we had had to have ranked and entered the schools with no great idea as to how bright our DS might be in relation to them. Getting through the Latymer first round kind of reinforced that we were on the right track with him. Looking at how my DSs class have done I think it is often how they did on the day and how well the exam suits their mental slant eg. DAO is more verbal than MHCH due to the specialisms. Overall a lot of them were equally bright but all seemed to get into different places with differing results. I don't think months of night after night papers makes sense but it seems to have worked for some so I guess you makes yer choice...

As a side effect DS is now I think better for the process and has grown up in a good way and impressed us with the way he dealt with it all.

[vas]

In my son's prep school and amongst all my friends' children tutoring was the norm. My son was tutored for a year for maths & english eventhough the school told me he had the ability to get through all the schools. As mentioned by most I didn't want to take a chance by not doing the norm. VR & NVR, I gave him papers and corrected them myself only addressing mistakes, English the (not my first language) the tutor helped as it was relaxing and my son got on very well with him, maths the tutor overloaded him and for the first time in Yr 6, my son failed to get the top score in one test by a mark. I did the overkill which wore my son out and thankfully slowed down completely from September. However I do think they have to be ready to do 3 papers in one go, so make sure you address this before January preferebly in the summer. One paper a day is not what MTS or Habs do, they have to be ready to brainstorm one after another. Also my son said that QE didn't even give a break between the papers! Yes you can do papers more than once particularly if they don't score well. Good luck with your son coolmum123

[coolmum123]

Hello all,

Thanks ever so much for all the tips that you have passed on - I will be taking them on board when we embark on our prep voyage ( which should be soon!!) I just have one more question.....

Which, if any, of the practice papers available in the shops is most helpful for practising ie alpha, NFER, Athey? I have NFER ones standard format but I'm not convinced that the type of questions they have are similar to the ones for Habs / MTS.

Thanks once again.

Regards