AFN Practice Test

[Josa]

Does anyone know the level of difficulty for these papers. Ds scored 50/60 in all 4 practice tests, not quite sure what to make of the scores and how difficult the papers are in comparison to other NVR papers.

Cheers

Josa

[sherry_d]

Easier than NFER and Bond.

We are actually working on them at the moment too. The patterns are much easier to spot.

[chicko-mum]

Discussion on the difficulty of various publishers here (although VR not NVR):
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... =3&t=12024

[Josa]

Thank you guys for your replies, practice, practice and more practice is the key I guess.

Cheers

Josa

[chicko-mum]

Yes, lots of practice for NVR. It's quite easy to rush through the questions and make silly mistakes though, so watch out for that happening. DD has a habit of doing this.
How far into the prep are you? Some advice posted by FM last year which might be helpful :

I would start with the Bond assessment papers for familiarisation. Do one type at a time i.e. all series, then all matrices etc.. Encourage elimination rather than selection i.e. crossing out wrong answers rather than selecting right ones. Most questions will have one answer that is spot-on and one that is nearly right, and, if you go for selection rather than elimination, child is likely to pick the first he encounters that seems to fit the bill which will mean he only gets half right.

After Bond, assuming all is going well, you could do AFN papers (easiest), followed by Bond Test Papers (hardest), followed finally by NFER (remembering Test A is the trickiest) and you may wish to do that one with him so you don't both become despondent with possible low score.

I would keep NFER papers until last. Bond is good to do with him as it is harder but includes all the combinations he will meet in the Bond papers. The important thing is to use the earlier papers to teach rather than test.

[sherry_d]

Thats very useful info by FM. We have slightly changed our format.

First she did 3 NFER/Bond and now we she has just finished the last AFN paper. We are going to start on Bond next and finish of with NFER. Reason she did AFN before Bond is she needed a lot of confidence building. We started by giving her the hardest NFER paper A. I didnt know it was the hardest and her confidence went on the floor when she perfomed badly. She has been scoring similar scores to your DC Josa on the AFN and its really helped her build up her confidence so hopefully with the practice she had she will be more confident tackling the Bond.

I am not sure what NFER papers you have, it seems the newer ones are easier too so it may be a good idea to leave the old ones for nearer the exam time.

[Josa]

Thanks Sherry_d and chiko-mum. NVR is Ds's weakest subject so we need to really push on this. Just like you sherry_d we attempted the NFER 11A back in April and ds scored 41/60, he was really disappointed with his score so we decided to leave the papers until later. Up until now we've been working through the Bond 4th, 5th assessment papers, these became a chore as they seemed to go on forever plus the fact that there were too many types mixed in one section. The 10 mins test seemed to have worked fine (well except for the net and cubes ) and we've just finished the AFN papers. I don't want to start him on the NFER and Bond papers because I don't think he's there yet and won't want his confidence affected, so will welcome advice from you guys.

Cheers

josa

[chicko-mum]

Ah yes, DD found those Bond papers tedious too we split them into sections rather than tackling the whole thing in one go. Have you identified if he's weaker in this because his understanding has gaps or if it's more to do with silly mistakes. We found how tired DD is affects NVR more than VR.