increase speed

[zeinab]

DD does not finish past / multiple choice papers in the time allocated by about 15/20 mins.

How can I improve and build up her speed ? Her accuracy is fine.

[mystery]

What are the papers she overshoots on? Which year is she? When's the test she is doing?

[Daogroupie]

Set her a target to do one more question each time and do it timed Do not give her extra time She spends longer as she knows she has longer. DG

[zeinab]

She's in yr5. Sitting the SET at Wally Girls & Nonsuch, mid-Sept 2015. Examples of paper - English CGP Multiple choice & S&Sims Mental Arithmetic Bk5

She starts off OK and about half way she slows down. Told her to leave questions she gets stuck on and to go back to them once she finishes the paper.

Any other ways she can build up speed ? How about seeing how many words she can write in a minute. Or does that just cover essay writing ?

Needs to conquer that if she wants to be in with a chance

Any other helpful advice please ?

[Marylou]

Try doing the test with her! Give her a reasonable head start (you can negotiate this with her!) and then go for it. It's a long time since most of us did timed exams so we've forgotten how stressful it can feel to have to complete a set number of questions in a given time, and that sense of your mind going blank over something quite simple!

I tried this approach with my son, who was a real slowcoach. We shared the "pain" of trying to get the last questions finished with the deadline looming. Whether it was as a result of this or just general practice, he managed to speed up and then I had the problem of him not wanting to use the time left at the end to check his answers...

[agathachristie]

Hi Zeinab, is it the shading that she is taking time on? My Dd used to waste time on the shading till I explained there was no first price on perfect shading and that it was a machine ( optical reader) that would mark her paper. If it is the shading then use the Hb pencils.

[galentina]

Hi zeinab,

my son is like this - he is very slow but if you give him time, he will answer ~100%, so with maths I sat with a timer and timed each question along as he was doing them - you can try it. do not rush her, while you timing, just check how many seconds each question takes. You will see that some questions take longer - find out why these questions took so long and how to do them quicker. practice similar ones until she would be able to do them faster.

another thing I noticed with my son - he puts the pencil down while he thinks, readjusting his posture (slouching and twiddling) and readjusting paper while he is writing so I timed again all these unnecessary moves and surprise-surprise - the seconds it took him to put the pencil down on the table and pick it back in his hand again - added up to about 2-3 minutes altogether! twiddling, scratching/holding his head and moving paper around - also took extra 2-3 minutes. if she has similar issues - you can help her to save her a few minutes by eliminating these unnecessary moves and perhaps it would be enough to answer remaining questions in required time.

[zeinab]

Hi Zimbabwe, is it the shading that she is taking time on? My Dd used to waste time on the shading till I explained there was no first price on perfect shading and that it was a machine ( optical reader) that would mark her paper. If it is the shading then use the Hb pencils.

agathachriste, it's Zeinab not Zimbabwe!! haha! Oh dear! And no it's not about shading just DD takes her time answering the questions. She gets most of them right now (thank God !!), but her head will wander somewhere midway.

Marylou, I have resorted to that many a times. She will beat me half way ( cos I let her of course hahaha) then slows down halfway onwards and competitiveness becomes zero.

[agathachristie]

sorry Zeinab, predictive text on my phone apologies

[modernista]

Hi,

The technique I followed was to identify which sections she was scoring low on or unsure of. Then practice those intead of doing whole papers.