Preparation. Where should we be by now?

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grgygirl
Posts: 382
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 11:09 am

Preparation. Where should we be by now?

Post by grgygirl »

Ds is in Year 5 and sitting Kent, St Olaves and Bexley. Bexley is CEM and Kent/First stage St Olaves is multiple choice and then second stage (if ds is lucky enough to get through!) is English Compr/Composition and wordy maths (hard).

We have been working our way through Bond 10-11 (now finishing Book 2 and a couple of the Stretch books). He still has some areas to improve but we are getting bored of Bond! I have the Athey, Letts (short tests for timing) and some other material (Walsh) but it's all a bit hit and miss!

Should we move onto the GL papers now or is it too early?

I have made the mistake of downloading Godolphin and Latymer/St Pauls Girls school/Manchester Grammar papers and can't see how I'm going to get from present standards to those standards between now and Sept (assuming St Olaves is that kind of standard).
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Preparation. Where should we be by now?

Post by Daogroupie »

You just need to start doing this type of comprehension paper. Little and often is the key. I am not a fan of Bond for students who are going to be doing exams in standard format comprehension. In my opinion students should embark on the exam format of the school as soon as possible.

The papers that you mention are done by hundreds of students every year. Many started where you are and kept at it until they got better. Once you are working regularly on these type of papers it will not seem nearly so daunting. DG
PettswoodFiona
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Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:24 pm
Location: Petts Wood, Bromley, Kent

Re: Preparation. Where should we be by now?

Post by PettswoodFiona »

DD sat the three tests recently (but Newstead obviously rather than St Olaves). I don't envy you the St Olaves test. The maths I hear is very hard. At this point last year we were just starting to ramp up the time we spent on the tests. DD would do a sample test and sometimes get virtually all right and then others get about 50% as she got stuck on a question or misread questions or ran out of time. We were starting from a good baseline as DD's vocab was already good and she was in the top set in maths. We did one half hour session during the week and then about 45 mins to an hour at the weekend. Before the start of the year it was more familiarisation and we'd tried the Explore Learning course for a short while too but decided to leave that aside as it didn't suit DD's learning style.

We also sat the first mock test in the spring - that really helped us identify any areas of weakness. We did a second mock in the summer for some last minute triage. It was also handy to experience exam conditions and juggle three lots of paper - question, answer, notes. During the summer holidays DD did half an hour a day five days a week. When she went back to school the practice books were put away and we didn't do any more. Whatever we did it seemed to work and she did really well in all the tests.

Kent test you need to get a good handle on timing - it is really tight in places. For Bexley vocab plays a big part.

Good luck.
grgygirl
Posts: 382
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 11:09 am

Re: Preparation. Where should we be by now?

Post by grgygirl »

Many thanks DAO and Pettswood. I'm going to try to focus on comprehensions (multiple choice and standard) over the next couple of months as ds has a weak area with these.
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