11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

CEM 11 Plus is the selective entrance exam administered by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, Department of Education, University of Durham.

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ToadMum
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Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by ToadMum »

salsa wrote:
KenR wrote:You need to understand that Durham CEM go out of their way to vary the exam on year to try to counteract the influence of tutors. I believe that this applies to CEM exams in other regions

If you take a look at the recent Birmingham KE Consortium exam content I recently posted for the Sept 2015 exam you will observe that the Maths questions style are quite different from the previous Sept 2014 exam. For self tutors the best approach is to use a variety of papers to prepare them for the unexpected!
Thank you very much for this information. So, should the practice papers providers label their stuff CEM?

I'm trying to give my son strategies other than "work as fast as you can", which he already knows.
Salsa
The Durham University CEM does say very clearly that they do not produce any commercially-available material, so I'm always surprised that it doesn't challenge the various providers of 'CEM' practice tests etc. Or perhaps they are happy to sit back and wait for those companies to take the flack the year that the real thing will be completely different from anything they have been selling?
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salsa
Posts: 2686
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 10:59 am

Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by salsa »

ToadMum wrote:
salsa wrote:
KenR wrote:You need to understand that Durham CEM go out of their way to vary the exam on year to try to counteract the influence of tutors. I believe that this applies to CEM exams in other regions

If you take a look at the recent Birmingham KE Consortium exam content I recently posted for the Sept 2015 exam you will observe that the Maths questions style are quite different from the previous Sept 2014 exam. For self tutors the best approach is to use a variety of papers to prepare them for the unexpected!
Thank you very much for this information. So, should the practice papers providers label their stuff CEM?

I'm trying to give my son strategies other than "work as fast as you can", which he already knows.
Salsa
The Durham University CEM does say very clearly that they do not produce any commercially-available material, so I'm always surprised that it doesn't challenge the various providers of 'CEM' practice tests etc. Or perhaps they are happy to sit back and wait for those companies to take the flack the year that the real thing will be completely different from anything they have been selling?
Or see what types they come up with in order to avoid them?
Bee
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Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:36 pm

Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by Bee »

I think it's best to use various materials from Letts, Bond, CGP, first past the post, GL etc.

there are some free papers online too.

it will give your child the best chance to prepare for any type of exam
salsa
Posts: 2686
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 10:59 am

Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by salsa »

Bee wrote:I think it's best to use various materials from Letts, Bond, CGP, first past the post, GL etc.

there are some free papers online too.

it will give your child the best chance to prepare for any type of exam
Thank you. That's what we've done. However, the CEM materials vary so much in the timings allowed per question.
Salsa
DIY Mum
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Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by DIY Mum »

You don't need to stick to their timings.
Whenever we did the papers (many moons ago), we reduced the timings considerably.
We didn't have any commercially produced CEM papers back then- and this was an advantage in some respects.

CEM maths, both content and timings has varied over the years. 9 years ago, Bham set 2 sections for maths: one very long problem solving type questions and the other was very quick maths. Then later, they combined the two types into one section. Recently they excluded completely a particular type. So variety and cobbling questions from various papers is key.
salsa
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Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 10:59 am

Re: 11+ Confidence CEM Style papers

Post by salsa »

Thank you so much for the advice. My son has his test on Tuesday and we have covered several styles, but the commercially available "CEM" papers are proving a challenge for Maths and some compressions where the passage is very long.
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