Hi
I have seen the sentence ‘Please do not give out details of the test, including content, question types, number of questions, timings etc as there will be late sitters who could benefit from this information’ on various posts by moderators.

As far as my understanding is that an exam paper can be used and is used by various regions but on the same day, with the same starting time of examination. There are always reserve papers made for late sitters.

Different examiners are asked to prepare papers and one of them is used for the actual test and one is kept for late sitters.
Correct me please if I am wrong here.

Correction follows :

This varies from area to area, but there are certainly areas where the same test is used for many months - Bucks is just one example, and there can be children taking the exact same paper as late as July of the following year.

We have no surefire way of knowing what happens each year in each area, and we therefore have a blanket embargo on anyone posting test content on the forum until we are absolutely certain that papers will not be reused.

Which area are you talking about? It really does depend on local arrangements. For example, the CSSE (Essex and Southend) writes its own papers and historically has used different ones for the main and reserve sittings. Other areas do use the same exam papers throughout the year, as testified by longstanding posters on this forum. There is no national 11+ and on national rule to which each separate selective school / LA / consortium must adhere.

X-posted with Sally-Anne (one of those of whom I write ).

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

I am a Wirral parent .

With only a few grammar schools, I can't imagine that Wirral schools go to the expense of ensuring that late sitters take a separate paper, and certainly not in the way you describe.

I notice also that the reserve date (for illness) is only 3 days after the main test. That suggests to me very strongly that the same paper is used on both days, because it gives only very limited time for the details of the paper to escape.

Although the paper is NFER, and there would be plenty of past papers that could be used for late sitters, there would probably be additional expense in marking very small numbers of different papers (sometimes only one or two) during the year.

Sak1983,

I see you have been with us since June 2018.

Where does your understanding come from? What data are you using?

CEM does not provide a different paper for the backup date. So all regions and consortiums using CEM have the same paper for the backup date. QE uses the same paper for the backup date.

CSSE uses a different paper and Latymer did this year and last year.

Those are the ones I know of.

Which ones do you know that use a different paper? DG

Kent uses the same paper all year

Hi Toad
Are there any available papers(to buy) that are similar to the CSSE (Essex and Southend) exams? My DS is going to sit next year and we're using a mixture of Bond and GL
Thanks in advance

Presumably you have acquired all the actual CSSE papers available currently? The latest ones are normally available to buy from the CSSE at the beginning of February.

I'm afraid I have no idea what commercially available papers might be anything like the CSSE ones, sorry.

_________________
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx