help with Type Q questions

Advice on 11 Plus VR papers and problems

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BLANCA
Posts: 144
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:58 pm

help with Type Q questions

Post by BLANCA »

Hello,

Any tips? We did tutors 30 min test last night and only got 38/50 spelling is dd's weakness and this may be a factor. are there any other practice materials or ideas you can share? Also how many of these questions are there in the bucks tests or does it change from paper to paper?

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

Post by patricia »

Dear Blanca

Firstly have you seen the list of compound words, with games to play….

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/pdf/11 ... tricia.pdf

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/pdf/el ... -words.pdf

I assume you mean IPS 30 minute papers not The Tutors. I always insist that my children write out all nine words IF they are unsure, by putting the 2 smaller words together it often becomes obvious. e.g.

RED and RAW together becomes REDRAW

DO and NATION together become DONATION.

As the first of the above link suggests, changing the sound is often important from the normal alphabet to the phonic. [and vice versa] e.g.

BEG and IN

The E sound in beg is the phonic sound, change it to the normal sound and you have BEEEGAN [ deliberately put 3 x E to make it obvious that it is an EEEE sound.]

Practice makes perfect, I am afraid, the more your child sees these compound words the more familiar she will become. Need to take into account ‘false compounds’ will try to catch the child out with words like POWER and FULL, my favourite MAN and SHONE [mansion] surprising how many choose this combination, the correct answer for this question was MANHOLE

Patricia
BLANCA
Posts: 144
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:58 pm

compound words

Post by BLANCA »

Thank you patricia

No I had not seen the two links, I have printed them off now and I am sure this will help. dd would 100% of gone for man shone. It was the tutors cd test though, just I know its type Q & wasnt sure what number tutors. Have I missed some IPS practice papers, the one we are doing are all mixed questions, are there some that are all the same?

thanks again
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

I can recommend the compound word games...

They really helped my pupils last year
BLANCA
Posts: 144
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:58 pm

Post by BLANCA »

thanx yoyo

dd thinks this will be much better than doing those boring tests. her words not mine
Road Runner
Posts: 410
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 8:32 pm

Melx

Post by Road Runner »

Hi Blanca

You may recall I am also tutoring my dd using all the papers that Patricia has recommended

Was this the first test your dd has attempted and do you mean she completed 38 after 30 minutes or do you mean she scored 38/50 and if so in what time.

My daughter has completed three of the IPS 30 questions/50 min tests so far and she hasn't yet managed to finish the test in the 30 miinutes but she has been pretty accurate in what she has completed. We test then stop after 30 mins draw a line and then she carries on so we can see how long she takes in total. Her overall times has been about 44 mins although the third test she did do the whole thing in 34 minutes and scored 44/50 which I feel was very good. I think the timing depends on what type of qestion types as some do take longer and some my dd is quicker on then others. I am still telling dd not to worry too much about time at present as her scoring is very good. One of the things I do when I mark the test is make notes of what types she score less in and we also discuss which q's she feels slowed her down, so we can practise more.

Sometimes she has spent far too long on one question. As an example yesterday she attempted her forth test. After 30 mins she had only completed 30 questions she said she felt she spent ages on one and it gave her a head ache which meant she then slowed down on the rest of the test. Because of this she was frustrated and she just did not have the will to go on and do the remaining q's like we normally do. I decided it would be detremental to push her so we decided to leave it and she will do it another day. Funny thing is when we looked back at the particular 'nightmare' question she was able to see the answer very quickly. What I am going to say from now is that she should leave any q's she feels she is spending too long on, circle and go back to it. I do think there is truth in the saying 'can't see for looking'.

As for the compound words we have in between tutoring been playing games. I have probably written out nearly all of the words Patricia has listed. Using small cards I have wrote one part of the word on one card and the other part on another. One of the ways my dd likes learning them is when I lay the cards down, start with say 4 down one side and then the 4 other parts of the words along side mixed up. See if she can see the word by using the same technique as taught in the method book. As she gets better increase the number you put down and then start puting them scattered rather then side by side so she has to work a little harder to find them.

I do this on a regular basis I scatter some cards around the dining room table(which I confess does permanently resemble a desk lately) and mention to her if she wants to do some she can. It makes it a bit more fun and less like hard work. We also do this with the cards turned face down so its a memory game whihc she enjoys.

This has really helped and in the main she gets all the compund q's right and it has helped her with her vocab in general.

Gosh I better stop waffling. Hope this helps.

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

Post by patricia »

Dear Mel

Glad the compound word idea is working!

When IPS are used as the first timed tests, it is rare that a child can finish in 30 mins, so do not worry. Your daughter just needs to be aware of how long she is taking so she can one, see her improvements and two get a feel for how quick she needs to be working.

If any of my children get bogged down with a question, they must ring it, take a good educated guess, move on and come back to it at the end. As you said a second look often makes the question a little clearer. They must take that good guess, because in the real test they may not have time to go back, by keeping to this 'rule' now, it ensures the child 'gets' into 'good' habits.

What type of question did she stumble on?

Patricia
Road Runner
Posts: 410
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 8:32 pm

Mel x

Post by Road Runner »

Hi Patricia

Thanks for the encouragement, I do keep telling her how well she is doing.

The question was a numeric one(still can't remember all the type letters) it was one of the sequence ones. I think she stuck with it as she has so far got every numeric question correct on all the tests she has attempted so I guess she just couldn't leave it. Like I say when we revisited it (as she wanted to show me why she took so long) she did pretty much see the answer right away. Then what made it worse was the after that the next set of q's were codes.

I think I have mentioned previously that she finds the codes time consuming although always gets the codes right. Taking on your previous advice we have done some extra code practise with us both doing some together and racing. She has done them very quickly when we've done this as she said knowing she is racing me spurs her on. Which is why last night was a shame as, as I said the next lot of q's that she didn't then complete were codes so we didn't get to see how much the extra practise helped. I have (again as per your suggestion) cut down on tutoring. We have been doing a full hour once a week with her completing a test and me marking it the next week. In between on a very blase basis we have been doing flash cards, compound games etc, which is helping enormously.

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

Post by Marylou »

Hi MelX!

We have also just started working through the IPS papers, with DD2 attempting her first one last week. She did quite well but got in a pickle as she left out a whole page and then panicked. Fortunately she calmed down enough to want to attempt the extra questions, but wasn't in a mood to go through the paper afterwards...but she didn't get many wrong so I'll probably just take a note of incorrect answers as we go along, to see which types are involved and work out where we need to put in the extra practice.

I haven't tried the compound word games with her yet but will do this as it seems to be a really good idea. I think looking at words in this way will help with all sorts of things, not just this particular type of question. Unfortunately we don't have time for more than one or possibly two sessions a week at present, but I have the Tutors software and also the IPS Daily Practice books for her to do once she builds up her confidence a bit more.

Thanks for all the excellent advice, Patricia!

Best regards

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

Post by patricia »

Dear Mel

With regard to the Vocab/Flash cards. I have started to tell my parents to blue tac about 5 of the cards to kitchen cabinets [anywhere really] child then can be asked at various times of the day for meanings etc. The cards can be rotated/extra added/moved to differnet places etc depending on thier results.

I do not expect the children to remember every single word, its the familiarisation and the recognition of that is more important.

It has been known that younger siblings end up joining in, therefore increasing their vocabulary too!

Going back to the sequences, I insist they do not do it their heads they must write notes. Children do not seem to understand that often writing something down, it becomes visual. In addition it actually increases their speed because they are working quickly with numbers/letters/operation/sequences flying around their liitle brains, write it down and hey presto. If they get a question wrong without making appropriate notes, my question always is 'Where are those notes!' in fact at this stage only a few weeks in I just look at them and they Know...

Often the children get the sequence right in their note taking but fall at the last hurdle. e.g

1 1 2 4 7 11 16 sequence would be quickly written between each number +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 they find the answer 21, which is not there, become frustrated. I tell them that 99% of the time they will have written the correct sequence, so instead of starting again trying to find another sequence, just assume it is correct what is the next in the sequence +6 does 16 + 6 = 21, no its 22

Patricia
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