Hi all

Don’t want to discuss test content here due to late sitters but just wanted to get an idea of how everyone’s DCs found it(CEM redbridge).

Ds said english was quite hard. Harder than mocks he has done.
Quite worried!

Bananaperson.

DD hasn’t said much. I think she’s sticking to them being told not to discuss it...she’s quite the rule follower. I’m not pushing her to talk about it. She came out happy but said she didn’t finish some sections. She said she’s happy with what she did so I’m happy with that. Xx

Dd said vocabulary section was a nightmare.
She agrees, harder than mocks. When older dd did the exam she thought that it was easy. Cem seems to be getting harder.

Does anyone know what the rough percentage for Woodford entry is?
CSSE next week...

DD found NVR hard. Didn't manage to finish that section, guessed around 10 questions. Mentioned vocab was hard, but not as hard as HB exam. She is just happy it's over. I am not pushing her to discuss much and worry. Whatever is done is done. She tried her best, that's what matters to us.

DS also said that vocab was more difficult than the mock and he ran out of time on this section but overall seemed happy. Here's hoping he didn't make too many silly mistakes (which he had done in the mocks).

We are now focusing on our last paper on Thursday but must admit DS seems to be taking it very easy now and has lost his focus a bit after two exams.

Roll on Thursday afternoon...... I can have a little break before DS2 needs to get his head down (just started Y5)!

StowMum

DD said she found the maths a bit hard , but that has always been her weaker area. She said she didn’t finish some sections but seems happy enough. Who knows? Roll on March.

Hi,

My daughter sat the CEM exam at Chelmsford on Saturday.

She also said she found it hard, she didn’t finish all the NVR questions edited by moderator However, I am told that the exam is not designed to be finished, for the majority of girls there are more questions than they are capable of doing in the allocated time frame.

My sister is a secondary school teacher and says it is always a good sign if they’ve found it hard! She said it terrifies her when children walk out of an exam and say it was easy - she said in most cases, if they think it’s easy then they have done it wrong. So I’m taking that as gospel! Hope that puts your mind at ease!

Our DD also found it very hard, ran out of time and didn't answer quite a few questions (didn't even have time for guessing). She is very negative about it all and doesn't want to talk about it any more, so we just leave her.

We did more or less the same prep with DS three years ago (started after Easter in year 5), who found the test a bit easier than what we did at home, and passed the test comfortably. DD on the other hand said it was a lot harder than what we did, so yes it does seem as if this test was more difficult. I just hope this will not result in parents tutoring their kids even more in future years...

I don't know what to think about vocabulary. DD said there were several words she had never heard of, although she is an avid reader and has read lots of books that are very advanced for her age. I suppose, as CEM aims to test for ability rather than knowledge, they want to see if a child can guess the meaning of unknown words based on the context etc? I wish they would be a bit more clear about such things, because now it just seems as if it would actually pay off to practise hundreds of tricky words that 10-year-olds would normally never know the meaning of. Surely that wouldn't be a good idea?!

Hello All,

My DS also said vocab was hard and he didn't finished 2 - 3 NVR questions.
But in mock exam was done on time. At home we didn't have problem with time either. So it seems exam was really harder then mock exam.

Today I spoke with another mum, she also told her DS found vocab very hard and din't finished all questions.

My DD described the CCHS CEM's NVR timing as "ugly", what ever that means. She said the vocabulary was hard and NVR more questions and less time. Fingers crossed