To Apply or Not to Apply?

Eleven Plus (11+) in Surrey (Sutton, Kingston and Wandsworth)

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Guest

To Apply or Not to Apply?

Post by Guest »

We are thinking about putting our daughter in for the Tiffin Girls test...

Given approx 1000 girls attempt to get 120 places competition is clearly fierce.

However, how many of the 1000 applicants are there even though they are not suitable?

What level of achievement would be a good indicator of the possibility of passing? Is it quantifiable?
Guest

Post by Guest »

We'll give it a go.

My daughter got Level 5's in her recent SATs. I assume that puts us in the right ball park.
chad
Posts: 1647
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:49 pm
Location: berkshire

Post by chad »

Sorry guest but I don't have any experience at Tiffin girls.....hopefully someone will be along that does.
On a general note....Level 5 Sats does indicate its worth a go.
Good Luck :)
Bakersdozen

Post by Bakersdozen »

Whilst my experience is at Tiffin Boys its always worth a go if you prepare well. Order some papers from the respective websites and try them out - there are lots of tips on this site of which papers are the most suitable and orders of difficulty etc.

As your daughter is acheiving well on NC levels at least you know you are starting with good raw material even if the Tiffin tests are so specific to those schools and unlike anything the child will have done in Primary school.

Regarding your other point the Boys school used to reckon you could divide the 1000+ applicants into thirds. One third just take the exam "Oh well lets give it a go, you never know" one third have looked at VR & NVR materials and one third have looked, tutored, studied and its this third who are the serious contenders, From within this group of 300 - 400 children your child must get in the top third again to be offered a place. Thats where it comes down to speed, confidence and a healthy dose of luck on the day!

Personally I fell this middle third and the top third are becoming more merged and of those taking it about half are deadly serious.

That said I have 2 state school educated, level 4/5 acheiving boys who have passed after tutoring and home learning so it is possible!
Guest

Post by Guest »

Thanks. We have a bpught some Bond Papers and a random assortment of others (Kay, McConkey&Maltman) and are starting to look at these.

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be a problem at NVR so we really have to just concentrate on vocabulary and technique on the VR.

Interestingly my daughter seems to get unstuck with some of the dated refererences in these papers... e.g. old money! Are these in the real tests?

Some things are a bit odd... e.g. ordering.... who knows the military rank order nowadays?

I was interested in discovering whether intelligence was a better indicator that preparedness? Or is it such an competative area that everyone has been doing VR and NVR so much that in the end it is just raw IQ and performance on the day that counts in the end?

I imagine that if you haven't prepared with at least a few practice tests then you wouldn't have a hope.

It's going to be a long six months.
patricia
Posts: 2803
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Post by patricia »

Dear Guest

You would appear to be looking at the wrong papers for VR tiffin tests. The VR questions are the same 21 types as set by Bucks, The Wirral and some others.

Publishers you need for the 21 types are IPS, Susan Daughtrey [Bright Sparks only]

There are others AFN [ but are easier] and Walsh.

You will need to look through NFER tests to in order to see the correct format. However these tests only have 15 types, they are missing HIKNOS [ as identified by IPS]

Therefore when completing Nfer tests you need to ensure you also practice HIKNOS/16-21

Patricia
Louise2

Post by Louise2 »

Dear Guest

I have just seen your post and I was going to say that you had the wrong papers but Patricia has already replied and as usual has given excellent advice. My daughter is going to Tiffin in September and she used NFER, Bright Sparks, The Tutors, some AFN, Bond and Walsh. I know the Walsh papers don't get glowing reviews from some on this forum, however the vocabulary is pitched at a slightly higher level to the rest of the papers available so I do think they are worth doing but not till the end and if this year's exam is an indication of what to expect in future the vocabulary is very difficult.

With NVR there are six types of questions that you will need to have covered. There is a post by a local tutor which tells you what those six question types are. I will have a look for it and post it here. Papers we used for NVR were NFER, AFN, Bond.
Louise2

Post by Louise2 »

Dear Guest

This is the quote I found from a Tiffin Tutor


"I have been a tutor for Tiffin and Sutton grammar schools for 10 years. The NVR section for Tiffin has remained much the same since the exam became multiple choice. The papers (80 questions) are broken into 4 sections of 20 questions each and rotate between 6 types - Analogic Relationship, Isomorphic Relationship, codes, series, Odd one Out and Matrices. On Tuesday, the exam consisted of codes, matrices, odd one out and analogic relationships. There was no maths of any kind on either paper.

One lovely question reported back to me was "design" plus "ate" equals "designate", and "me" plus "shed" equals "meshed". I have had feed back from many of my students who reported that there were no "surprises" for them which, from a professional point of view, was encouraging."
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