My Child's Verbal Reasoning Test Results

[JJ Parent]

New to the subject and would like to have your advice.

I am thinking of entering my child (starting year 6 in Sep in a state school) for a local grammar school 11+ exams.

My child has no problem with math, English and science all 5A. But never heard of verbal reasoning. I bought Bond 11+ test papers from WH Smith.

First go, 58/80 (47min), went on for some practice.

After 3 weeks, did the rest three papers,

74/80 (42min)
77/80 (41min)
75/80 (44min)

My questions are

1 If verbal reasoning is sort of IQ test, how can practice improve the score so quickly (IQ does not seem to change)?

2 Is there any standard papers that are similar to the real one. There are so many these days, Bond, IPS, The Tutors, NFER.

3 What sort of performance in verbal reasoning is expected to secure a scholarship 79/89, 80/80 (my child is confident to achieve top marks in English and Math)?

[Mike]

Hi JJ Parent

It would be helpful to know in which LEA your child will be sitting the test, then we can be more specific with our answers.

Regards

Mike

[Guest]

Thanks Mike. The LEA is Hampshire

[Guest]

I Think Mike meant which Grammar school.

[JJ Parent]

That is my next task to identify one in my area.

[Guest]

Try
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/selective_schools.php
for list of schools can't think of one in Hampshire though.

BW

[JJ Parent]

Thanks!
Has anyone tried with the practice papers from different publishers. Are they more or less the same or some considerably harder than others?

Any successful story (a child gained full fee scholarship)?
What sort of performance score achieved in VR, Math and English.

Thank you again for your info.

[Bewildered]

Try this thread
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... light=eton

Search around the threads, there is a wealth of valuable info on this site.

Usual papers that are closest to 11+ exams are NFER. They come in Maths/Eng/VR/NVR, Standard and Multiple choice Formats.

As you'll see as you browse around the site, they are usually left to just before the exam, as they are the closest match.

But would also check out what the Grammar you'll be going for, tests for. Some just do VR, whilst others do a combination of some or all of the above.

[Guest]

Hi

I think you had better identify your school fast as some exams also consist of non-verbal reasoning

[Sally-Anne]

Hi

I think you had better identify your school fast as some exams also consist of non-verbal reasoning

...and the chances are that you will have little or no idea of what types of question will be coming up for either VR or NVR.

My son sat the Bucks 11+ which is NFER, and IPS are very good for that style of VR. The local private school uses a format that is much more like Bond for their entrance exam.

Our experience was that Bond are easier than IPS and other papers, but that's just on a survey of one! Other people have reported the opposite. However, I found Bond to be very different as much as anything, so I suggest trying the IPS papers to get a contrast.

On the pass mark needed for a scholarship, perhaps it helps if you know that the pass mark for Bucks is 86% or thereabouts, so for a scholarship I would think he would need to score in 90%+. There are quite a lot of children in Bucks who achieve full marks, although the standardisation for age helps many of them to do that.

Sally-Anne