11 Plus Exams Forum

Is it possible

our DS missed out by 1.5 (2 rounded) points, his Non Verbal was unexpectedly low. He's always aced that section in all the CEM practice papers. He also got his highest marks in the non verbal in the Kent test.

So I'd love to know why he lost out on his 'best' section.

CEM don’t allow anyone to see their papers, so there is no point asking.

It may be your DS skipped a line marking on the answer sheet?

If it helps, my son was always pretty good at NVR and didn't do as well as expected in the actual paper. He absolutely aced the verbal stuff. I know he found the NVR really time pressured compared with stuff he had done before. It was also the very last section so tiredness could be an issue. The Kent results were complete opposite with good reasoning and maths and quite low verbal. Luckily he passed both, but I did find it really strange that the results were completely opposite.

There was also the fact that when my son sat it at Beth's (the Tuesday PM), it started raining whilst the parents were waiting to collect and they sent all the parents into the covered area right underneath the hall - so for the last five minutes there was masses of noise from the parents that didn't all realise we were standing right underneath the hall and all the boys near the window were looking out for their parents - my son was definitely distracted! If your son was there in that session, I can imagine there would be grounds for an appeal!

I can't believe they did that. Why on earth didn't one of the adults in the room go out and do something about it.

You can send a cheque to CEM and get your breakdown of your three scores. DG

Hi

I think you can ask for a review of the score (if you believe it was unexpectedly low). Does the email or earlier information mention this. This review might check the answer sheets to see whether there is anything unusual. I imagine out of sequence on the answer sheet might be one such issue. Worth asking.

Best of Luck

Yes i will ask for a breakdown -
it just seems odd - yes he was in the PM tuesday Beths session.

His non verbal is normally up with his maths and english is his weakest - in kent his maths and NVR were mark for mark the same

it was 35 points lower than his maths in bexley which makes me think he miss-marked one section or something odd, assuming it was harder it seems wierd for it to be SO low.