Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

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exam2019
Posts: 227
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:14 pm

Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

Post by exam2019 »

Hi
DD is prepping for Latymer and Woodford County High School.
Latymer is GL Style maths and Woodford is CEM.
Latymer is our first choice and DS is already there.
Preparation hasn't gone as well as it did with her brother. She's clever but she's not got the same intuitive puzzling mind as her brother, so her speed is too slow.
She sat a mock last weekend and I was expecting the result to be average, but she was well down the field.
She told me that she ran out of time and also had a couple of groups of VR questions that she finds particularly hard.
We need to get her Maths and VR going faster but if I tell her about the result she'll be very dis-heartened.
Any ideas on how to help her?
Thanks
Octsmum
Posts: 345
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:21 pm

Re: Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

Post by Octsmum »

Hi

First up - I'm not familiar with GL - so others maybe able to help more in this regard. I'm a parent, not a tutor so others may have different suggestions.

In terms of Maths - are her times tables strong & fast? Then I'd try & identify the types of questions where she is struggling / slower & practice untimed & get her confidence up & then introduce some timing. Perhaps make it fun - race against her & she how many you can complete & try to get her to beat you?

Verbal reasoning - might be worth thinking about technique - does she read the whole passage & then answer the questions? Or skim the questions & go looking for the answer? Again - trying to pin point the types of questions & work on those?

Hope this helps

Edited to add - might be worth looking in the maths & verbal reasoning sections. I saw this & thought of youhttps://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/ ... =3&t=30078" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
exam2019
Posts: 227
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:14 pm

Re: Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

Post by exam2019 »

Thanks Octsmum. I've decided not to give her the full picture on her mocks as I think it will be too demoralising. I'll try using a "carrot" instead to motivate her. She's capable but at the moment, not motivated enough... We did a lot of work on times table last year and that's all solid. I think it may be good to work on fast "mental maths" to deal with more complicated sums in her head without having to write everything down. Good luck with your prep
SleepyHead
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:41 am

Re: Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

Post by SleepyHead »

Hi exam2019,

Have you got the GL packs, I think there are 3-4 packs. It might be worth doing all the maths parts of those packs a couple of times, and note down any topics that your DC might need further revision with.

For CEM, CGP do several packs which we used, but there are lots of other publishers of CEM that you can find from the shop menu item above.

Also, I think mocks are critical, we ended up doing lots of Susan Daughterty Mocks for bucks and Watford consortium. Also elevenplusexams mocks were (we found) harder but in the end better preparation closer to the exam date. For elevenplusexams mocks, we did all GL and all CEM in the couple of months before the exam and they were invaluable practice in not only working on speed but also levelling up on difficulty.

Hope this helps, all the best
exam2019
Posts: 227
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:14 pm

Re: Prep Not Going Well - 3 months to go - any advice?

Post by exam2019 »

Thanks @Sleepyhead

We've had quite a few chats and DD is taking more ownership of her prep. Speed is maybe getting slightly quicker as a result...
We've also booked 2 mocks - 1 in person and 1 online over the summer to test progress.
Honing exam practice does seem to help.
And we've decided just to go for the GL test and will opt out of the CEM one so that will reduce the amount of prep work.

Given that there will probably be 50% more candidates this time compared to when DS sat, she's really got her work cut out for her :shock:
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