Fact or Chinese Whispers

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patricia
Posts: 2803
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by patricia »

95 on the first and 108 on the second
This has been quoted on various threads over the forum.

Where has this figure come from?

My understanding is that each section within each test starts at number 1.

For example:

Test 1 section one: questions 1-20
Test 1 Section two: questions 1-5
Test 1 Section three: questions 1-13
Test 1 Section four: questions 1-18
etc etc

Has a child really sat and worked out how many questions over each test and got the figures 95 and 108, particularly when the majority were finding it hard to finish a section never mind tot them all up.

Perhaps you can ask your children.

Did each section start at 1?
Did each section carry on in sequence 1-20, 21-26, 27-39 etc etc

Patricia
Lea's mum
Posts: 50
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 5:17 pm

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by Lea's mum »

The only thing dd told us was that each section had between 18 to 30 questions. One of the NVR was 28 questions, and the Maths on the second paper was 30 questions in 10 minutes. She didn't mention the way the questions were numbered but I will ask her tonight
Marylou
Posts: 2164
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:21 am

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by Marylou »

Each section started again at 1.

When we were doing the Bexley practice paper, I was surprised when mine quickly totted up the number of questions on the answer sheet in between sections, but that was relatively easy as they were mostly in multiples of 8. Perhaps some children do this out of curiosity? :o :)
Marylou
patricia
Posts: 2803
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by patricia »

The Bexley was much shorter and only one test. In addition it was probably sat under less stressful conditions. :wink:

Patricia
Marylou
Posts: 2164
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:21 am

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by Marylou »

patricia wrote:In addition it was probably sat under less stressful conditions. :wink:
Nope - I made sure of that! (Timed it viciously, used very stern voice, paced up and down and pretended to be a CD.) :lol:

Seriously though, I too would be interested to know the answer to this. The FAQ sheet said that the test would comprise two papers of three sections each, but it appears that each paper had more than that! I'll see if I can find out a bit more later. :)
Marylou
Okanagan
Posts: 1706
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:20 pm
Location: Warwickshire

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by Okanagan »

I suspect that was a lost in translation somewhere version of each paper will contain sections of all three types of questions (VR/English, NVR and numerical reasoning). Someone has reworded it and assumed that meant three sections on each, rather than more, but shorter, sections, which is typical for CEM.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by mystery »

patricia wrote:
95 on the first and 108 on the second
This has been quoted on various threads over the forum.

Where has this figure come from?

My understanding is that each section within each test starts at number 1.

For example:

Test 1 section one: questions 1-20
Test 1 Section two: questions 1-5
Test 1 Section three: questions 1-13
Test 1 Section four: questions 1-18
etc etc

Has a child really sat and worked out how many questions over each test and got the figures 95 and 108, particularly when the majority were finding it hard to finish a section never mind tot them all up.

Perhaps you can ask your children.

Did each section start at 1?
Did each section carry on in sequence 1-20, 21-26, 27-39 etc etc

Patricia
Yes, I wondered how a child could come out of an exam like this with this kind of detail too - similarly for the timing for each section that someone has given on the South Herts consortium exam. Perhaps it is the mythical paid sitters who go in and have time to note all this down on the palm of their hand during the exam. It is hard to credit that a child could come out of any exam like this with such accurate information.

If you look at this thread though, it does look as though it is within the realms of possibility:

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... =5&t=33611" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Okanagan
Posts: 1706
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:20 pm
Location: Warwickshire

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by Okanagan »

I suppose it's possible that while they've still got the papers in front of them, waiting to be collected, but after the "stop writing" instruction one of them might have added up the number in each section. Even if each section is numbered from 1 it's a relatively simple piece of mental arithmetic to add together 4 or 5 two digit numbers to get the total number of questions.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by mystery »

Okanagan wrote:I suppose it's possible that while they've still got the papers in front of them, waiting to be collected, but after the "stop writing" instruction one of them might have added up the number in each section. Even if each section is numbered from 1 it's a relatively simple piece of mental arithmetic to add together 4 or 5 two digit numbers to get the total number of questions.
Don't some tutors (never met one though) ask each of their tutees to look out for something specific, and then put together the answers afterwards to get a fuller picture. And don't some tutors / invigilators somehow seem to end up with copies of the real papers (never seen one either) but I do know of one person who claims to have some old GL assessment real papers at home. It won't be any different for C E M will it? This is one of the reasons why they try to vary their papers from year to year?

And what about your 1000 year 6 children who sat some kind of C E M trial earlier this year? Wouldn't some information have been gleaned from that by the more calculating tutors?
FLG
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:30 pm

Re: Fact or Chinese Whispers

Post by FLG »

My DC said paper one was three sections and paper Two was four sections, each between 18 and 24 ish
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