11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi
Just wondered how much work those not using a tutor and doing work with their children at home are doing.? My daughter is in year 5 so will be sitting the Kent test in Sep. I am trying to do at least a few bond 10 minute tests each week but with work, after school activities etc I feel like i'm not spending as much time on 11+ prep as I should be! Am hoping to start doing some full pratice papers this weekend as so far have been doing short excercises.
How much are you doing?

Hi kal12003

The bond books are not all that relevant for the Kent Test in my experience - I am not bothering with them at all this year and feel that they were next to useless in hindsight as not all the GL content is covered in them. (I have one daughter who passed the Kent test in 2013 and one who will sit it this September) - you need to be looking at more at preparing using the GL Assessment type materials that are available - as this is the company that is contracted to produce the Kent Test for 2014. If you search through the Kent forum there is a wealth of information and opinion out there from some very experienced and well informed people, but be aware that KCC are due to release information about the new test format in May so we are all working in the dark somewhat.

I am working on making sure that we run through all the maths, VR and NVR topics that GL historically included in the Kent Test, plus targeting short comprehensions, vocab and SPAG in English. I aim to do about an hour or so a week in short bursts with my daughter and only started towards the end of Feb. I mainly use the GL and CPG papers, and just abstract chunks for her to do in 10 or 20 minute sittings. If we don't do any I don't stress about it too much. We are not targeting a super-selective grammar though...(although due to changes in admissions rules it may well be one soon).

I think that the Bond, GL (old), CGP are all test materials. One should focus on core concepts that are never going to change. I mean fractions are just fractions and verbal is just knowledge of words. Therefore, all books are relevant.

Format (CEM or whatever) is largely cosmetic, it would still test the same stuff. Yes, you may have to fine-tune the approach slightly (cloze, speed for CEM etc) but fundamentals would remain same. Therefore, spend all the energy on understanding fundamentals at this stage.

FYI, we did Bexley CEM that was introduced last year and used the same approach (and my ds cracked full 280). I could be wrong but it worked for us.

Full 280. Wasted your time then because your ds would have got a place without doing any work.

By the way 280 is not the maximum in all CEM tests. See various threads on the Birmingham section.

280 was the max score in Bexley CEM. Not sure about the other regions.