few crucial questions
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few crucial questions
Hi all again I don't know if i am starting to many new topics for a newbee please let me know if so, but as i was marking my sons last paper (his first walsh seems really hard) i was thinking that it is all going to come down to his answers to a few cruicial questions
If we assume that somewhere between 65 and 72 out of 80 will lie the pass mark (obviously adjusted for age and standardised to give a standard deviation score etc) and looking at the papers in each section of around 7 questions there are probably 5 that are easy and 2 that are hard if you assume you will get the five correct this gives you a score of around 55-60 so it is on the last 20 questions that a pass or fail is decided however it's even tighter than that because probably 5 of these most children will get wrong and 5 most children will get right leaving around 10 questions per paper which decide everything.
I'm not sure exactly where i'm going with this but i suppose the 'ideal' is to aim to whiz through the 50-60 easy ones as fast as possible to guess the five you are gonna get wrong anyway ( and minimise the time spent on these) and spend as much time as possible on the 10 crucial questions. However how do you get your child to spot these 10 and spend the most time on them?? the type z's are a case in point as i think these are v likely to be in the 10 crucials as they are hard enough to not be in the easy 60 but can usually anwered succesfully with appropriate time. I would be interested in peoples views on this. I maybe over complicating it!!
If we assume that somewhere between 65 and 72 out of 80 will lie the pass mark (obviously adjusted for age and standardised to give a standard deviation score etc) and looking at the papers in each section of around 7 questions there are probably 5 that are easy and 2 that are hard if you assume you will get the five correct this gives you a score of around 55-60 so it is on the last 20 questions that a pass or fail is decided however it's even tighter than that because probably 5 of these most children will get wrong and 5 most children will get right leaving around 10 questions per paper which decide everything.
I'm not sure exactly where i'm going with this but i suppose the 'ideal' is to aim to whiz through the 50-60 easy ones as fast as possible to guess the five you are gonna get wrong anyway ( and minimise the time spent on these) and spend as much time as possible on the 10 crucial questions. However how do you get your child to spot these 10 and spend the most time on them?? the type z's are a case in point as i think these are v likely to be in the 10 crucials as they are hard enough to not be in the easy 60 but can usually anwered succesfully with appropriate time. I would be interested in peoples views on this. I maybe over complicating it!!
Re: few crucial questions
I always told mine to leave the Type Z's until last but mark an answer anyway (you can always rub it out), circle the question and fold the corner of the page down before moving on! This makes sense as you can answer a fair number of questions in the time it takes to work out a type Z, but you still only get one point for it.
As for the other types...my experience is that the questions in each group start easy and get harder. With your idea this would suggest guessing the last 1-2 of each group, but I think this might be a risky strategy - what does everyone else think?
With any "not sures" I've always suggested circling the question on the question sheet to come back to later, but always mark an answer on the sheet in the meantime so that at least you have something if you run out of time. Furthermore, always marking the same letter for guessed answers (all a, b, c, etc.) increases the chance of getting at least some of them right, rather than randomly selecting an answer for all the ones you guess.
I think most of these tips came from Patricia .
As for the other types...my experience is that the questions in each group start easy and get harder. With your idea this would suggest guessing the last 1-2 of each group, but I think this might be a risky strategy - what does everyone else think?
With any "not sures" I've always suggested circling the question on the question sheet to come back to later, but always mark an answer on the sheet in the meantime so that at least you have something if you run out of time. Furthermore, always marking the same letter for guessed answers (all a, b, c, etc.) increases the chance of getting at least some of them right, rather than randomly selecting an answer for all the ones you guess.
I think most of these tips came from Patricia .
Marylou
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Sally-Anne
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- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
- Location: Buckinghamshire
OMG Tree! 
Essentially you are right, but it is too much to expect your son to absorb a strategy like that. He will be spending all his time trying to work out which questions to leave, rather than working out the answers to the rest!
Patricia will be along soon, but the general advice is:
1. Work through the paper in the order it is given and attempt every question except the Type Zs. They take a long time and are only worth one mark.
2. Circle the Type Z questions on the answer paper and leave them until the end.
3. Circle any other questions that you have attempted but can't get, and then come back to them at the end. Strike through the circle once you solve them. I personally favour working through all circled questions, including the Zs, in order at this point.
5. With 5 minutes to go (the invigilator should give a verbal time check), check for any remaining circled questions and make your "best guess", based on the information in the question and the answers provided.
6. If you haven't made it to the end of all 80 questions - say you are only on Question 74 - use the last 10 seconds of the test to mark the first answer to each remaining question. Statistically, if there are 5 remaining unanswered questions, you will get at least 1 mark, sometimes even 2 or 3 marks.
Practise the speed needed for these last few minutes of the test.
The only exception I would make to these rules is for a child who can "see" the Type Zs almost instinctively, and may be able to do them just as efficiently on the first pass. They are relatively rare though, and even they can come a cropper on a particularly tough question.
Sally-Anne
Essentially you are right, but it is too much to expect your son to absorb a strategy like that. He will be spending all his time trying to work out which questions to leave, rather than working out the answers to the rest!
Patricia will be along soon, but the general advice is:
1. Work through the paper in the order it is given and attempt every question except the Type Zs. They take a long time and are only worth one mark.
2. Circle the Type Z questions on the answer paper and leave them until the end.
3. Circle any other questions that you have attempted but can't get, and then come back to them at the end. Strike through the circle once you solve them. I personally favour working through all circled questions, including the Zs, in order at this point.
5. With 5 minutes to go (the invigilator should give a verbal time check), check for any remaining circled questions and make your "best guess", based on the information in the question and the answers provided.
6. If you haven't made it to the end of all 80 questions - say you are only on Question 74 - use the last 10 seconds of the test to mark the first answer to each remaining question. Statistically, if there are 5 remaining unanswered questions, you will get at least 1 mark, sometimes even 2 or 3 marks.
Practise the speed needed for these last few minutes of the test.
The only exception I would make to these rules is for a child who can "see" the Type Zs almost instinctively, and may be able to do them just as efficiently on the first pass. They are relatively rare though, and even they can come a cropper on a particularly tough question.
Sally-Anne
Dear Tree
The pass mark is very approx 86% thats 69 out of 80. Due to standardisation The child needs to be aiming for 90%, thats 72 out of 80.
I encourage [well insist] that all codes, maths, where does the letter come from [types O and R as identified by IPS] finding the hidden 4 letter word, Zs are completed with 100% accuracy. As long as the rules are adhered to, all the information is there for the child to get them right. This leaves some leeway for unknown vocabulary.
I would never encourage children to zip through as many easy ones as quickly as possible, as silly mistakes would creep in. In addition whats easy to one child is hard to another, as you say how can a child spot the 'crucial' questions.
Z questions should always be left until last. Guess the answer and move on. All other questions should be attempted in the order that they arrive.
Patricia
The pass mark is very approx 86% thats 69 out of 80. Due to standardisation The child needs to be aiming for 90%, thats 72 out of 80.
I encourage [well insist] that all codes, maths, where does the letter come from [types O and R as identified by IPS] finding the hidden 4 letter word, Zs are completed with 100% accuracy. As long as the rules are adhered to, all the information is there for the child to get them right. This leaves some leeway for unknown vocabulary.
I would never encourage children to zip through as many easy ones as quickly as possible, as silly mistakes would creep in. In addition whats easy to one child is hard to another, as you say how can a child spot the 'crucial' questions.
Z questions should always be left until last. Guess the answer and move on. All other questions should be attempted in the order that they arrive.
Patricia
Don't know if this will help but here goes...
DS is very strong at Maths so our approach to the test was - anything Maths related he would get right - this included number sequences, missing number in brackets - no ifs, buts or maybes - he would get those questions right. For the code questions the answer is there in front of you so number one priority is accuracy as there will be "trick" answers - again these were a must get right type. We accepted that despite being a brilliant reader his spelling/vocabulary was a weak spot so for the odd one out, similar/opposite word type he would read the question and options carefully, if he knew the answer great and if not put in a best guess and mark the question paper so he could have another look at the end, time permitting. Type Z take a fair chunk of time and they are still only worth 1 mark so miss it out completely unless there is spare time at the end - this was an issue for us as DS loves these logic type problems!
He seemed more relaxed thinking that his score depended on his strong Maths and code skills rather than fretting over his not so strong English. Also after the first paper we went over the question types that had not yet been tested so he knew what to expect the following week.
It worked for us - I think the fact that he felt in control because we emphasised his strengths rather than concentrate on his weakness helped psychologically if not in reality. I would laugh if we saw his marked papers and found out he had done better in the vocabulary types than his "strong" types.
DS is very strong at Maths so our approach to the test was - anything Maths related he would get right - this included number sequences, missing number in brackets - no ifs, buts or maybes - he would get those questions right. For the code questions the answer is there in front of you so number one priority is accuracy as there will be "trick" answers - again these were a must get right type. We accepted that despite being a brilliant reader his spelling/vocabulary was a weak spot so for the odd one out, similar/opposite word type he would read the question and options carefully, if he knew the answer great and if not put in a best guess and mark the question paper so he could have another look at the end, time permitting. Type Z take a fair chunk of time and they are still only worth 1 mark so miss it out completely unless there is spare time at the end - this was an issue for us as DS loves these logic type problems!
He seemed more relaxed thinking that his score depended on his strong Maths and code skills rather than fretting over his not so strong English. Also after the first paper we went over the question types that had not yet been tested so he knew what to expect the following week.
It worked for us - I think the fact that he felt in control because we emphasised his strengths rather than concentrate on his weakness helped psychologically if not in reality. I would laugh if we saw his marked papers and found out he had done better in the vocabulary types than his "strong" types.
Thanks everyone That's a real help i think i can see that basically the idea of patricia's rules are effectively the ideal in other words maximising marks on definitive questions ie maths and codes doing you best on the vocab ones and leaving the ones that take you a long time ie the z's till the end. I suppose my concern is timing if you end up running out of time with say 6 questions to go it would be better for these 6 questions to be really hard ones that you may have only expected to have got 1 or 2 right anyway and therefore are no worse off than the last 7 on the paper which may have been all easier and therfore you would normally have expected to get mostly correct so is it better to have a rule than says if you have spent say 1 minute on a question and have'nt got the answer then leave it till the end? although you could waste a lot of time looking at the clock. I suppose my particular concern with this is that my son has a particuler trouble with timing he usually gets most correct but is v easily distracted and his mind wanders off (he is young) and often does'nt get time to do the z's. Even with this he still usually gets around 72-75 but i worry with the extra pressure of the actual exam and if it's a litle harder than the practice papers it may become a bigger problem.
anyway thanks for all the replies it's very interesting.
PS Does anyone know wether any assesment is made of the marks to profile them i suppose you could imagine you could guage extra information but looking at the type of questions students got correct etc etc you could see that this kind off assesment could be useful for the appeals
anyway thanks for all the replies it's very interesting.
PS Does anyone know wether any assesment is made of the marks to profile them i suppose you could imagine you could guage extra information but looking at the type of questions students got correct etc etc you could see that this kind off assesment could be useful for the appeals
Yes, I would like to know this too.Does anyone know wether any assesment is made of the marks to profile them i suppose you could imagine you could guage extra information but looking at the type of questions students got correct etc etc you could see that this kind off assesment could be useful for the appeals
Nicholas
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Sally-Anne
- Posts: 9235
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
- Location: Buckinghamshire
Sorry - I missed that point yesterday.
No, there is no assessment made or profiling done of the marks by type, even in a re-mark. I am not sure that can even request the information, or ask to view your child's test paper, under the Data Protection Act.
Some children however may be clearly significantly stronger at Maths/Science than at English, or of course have dyslexia, and that leaves them less likely to perform well in a Verbal Reasoning test. That is a reasonably common statement from parents at an appeal. Panels do give it due weight because they acknowledge that the Bucks test is not the best measure of every single child's ability.
Sally-Anne
No, there is no assessment made or profiling done of the marks by type, even in a re-mark. I am not sure that can even request the information, or ask to view your child's test paper, under the Data Protection Act.
Some children however may be clearly significantly stronger at Maths/Science than at English, or of course have dyslexia, and that leaves them less likely to perform well in a Verbal Reasoning test. That is a reasonably common statement from parents at an appeal. Panels do give it due weight because they acknowledge that the Bucks test is not the best measure of every single child's ability.
Sally-Anne
In context...
Under the Data Protection Act, Schedule 7, Section 9, candidates do not have the right to see their examination papers once they have been handed in. The Freedom of Information Act does not override the Data Protection Act in this matter. However, on request and upon payment of the appropriate fee, the Data Protection Act provides for the release of raw test scores, test papers to be remarked and for test paper analysis.
You should discuss the matter first with your child’s headteacher as we would normally expect them to make the request on your behalf.
Where provided, this information will be included in the papers submitted to the independent appeal panel when hearing a selection appeal on behalf of a non-qualified child. We expect about 30% of children to achieve the automatic qualifying score of 121 in at least one of their tests.
Under the Data Protection Act, Schedule 7, Section 9, candidates do not have the right to see their examination papers once they have been handed in. The Freedom of Information Act does not override the Data Protection Act in this matter. However, on request and upon payment of the appropriate fee, the Data Protection Act provides for the release of raw test scores, test papers to be remarked and for test paper analysis.
You should discuss the matter first with your child’s headteacher as we would normally expect them to make the request on your behalf.
Where provided, this information will be included in the papers submitted to the independent appeal panel when hearing a selection appeal on behalf of a non-qualified child. We expect about 30% of children to achieve the automatic qualifying score of 121 in at least one of their tests.