Exams

[Pinnermum]

Just need some guidance. My son has sat his second mock and didn't do too well. When I looked at the questions and asked him the question again he knew the answer. So I don't know why he is making the mistake in the test. Any ideas? Not sure if he just gets stressed! But now I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

[newdud]

It is probably he got very stressed by the whole process and made lots of silly mistakes.
Take it for what it is, a trail run, and learn from it so that the same mistakes are not made again in the real exam

Get him to do other exam paper under time pressure and exam condition at home, for him to get used to the process.
However, do not "exam paper" him to death! A small amount of stress in the exam is good! it makes the brain work better

[kenyancowgirl]

Just need some guidance. My son has sat his second mock and didn't do too well. When I looked at the questions and asked him the question again he knew the answer. So I don't know why he is making the mistake in the test. Any ideas? Not sure if he just gets stressed! But now I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

It could be nerves or it could be that he is bored to tears with the whole process, or it could be that he doesn't know it but when you go through it with him the little clues you give him jog something in his memory... How much tutoring (either at home with you or with a tutor) plus tutor homework has he been doing this year - and how long has he been doing that for? Why not take a step back and revisit the basics - go through some practise tests, untimed, and allow him to do "well" again to gain confidence - if he can't do well untimed maybe he genuinely doesn't know the stuff. Or he ran out of time. If he can do well then you know you need to focus on him gaining confidence to do well under a time pressure - remember that scores generally (if it is CEM) are not in the high 90% - and remind him, if he is running out of time in multiple choice questions to just pick a letter and put it for every answer in say the last minute. Basically, the difference between a child getting a place and not, more often than not comes down to strategic guessing - this is what paid for tutors tell their students to do - but often don't tell parents that actually their child could get in simply by guessing the last few!

[Pinnermum]

Thank you all. You guys are right. This has really helped and think defo it is a confidence issue! I will try what you have suggested.

[Daogroupie]

Mods can you move this to general topics as it will get more response there. DG

[Daogroupie]

Exam strategy is critical.

Very very bright students miss out every year because they don't approach the exam in the right way.

He needs to glance through each section BEFORE he starts and focus on the easy questions first and leave the hard ones until last. When he gets the time warning then he needs to STOP looking at the questions and just mark C for each unanswered one. When he has done that he can start looking at them again in the time remaining.

Does he really want to go to the school he is preparing for? DG

[Aethel]

I’d argue it depends on the student, Dao.

Not every child has the personality type where they could “just glance through” a section, that is taking time away from doing the questions, especially because not every child can speed-read (and not paying attention properly can lead to mis-reading what is being asked).

I’d argue the majority of children are better off practicing with time awareness (eg by doing ten-minute-test exercises three times a week) to ensure their pace is good, and then be aware that getting bogged down in a tricky question could cost them several marks, so to “skip and move on” if they feel after eg a minute, they haven’t gotten the question sorted out.

If kids have difficulty recognising the “bogged down” questions, that is where your home practice can help: identify those they find hardest and prime them to be quicker to decide to skip-and-guess such questions. Eg one of my DDs used to tie herself in knots with the “n in a series” question. So she decided that as there weren’t many she’d have a quick intuitive stab at such a question inten seconds and then ignore it, as the time sunk into genuinely working it out, could be spent answering 5 other questions accurately.

[Aethel]

Also “answring the easy questions first” is one approach, but some children find that if they answer questions out of order they are FAR more likely to answer in the wrong number box or miss out answers.

If they get “out of line” in a machine marked question (eg out the answer for q10 in q11)
Then it can be a total disaster and there is no re marking!

I ask the child to check the question number ,put their finger at the right point on the answer sheet, and when writing their answer double check to ensure the numbers match up ok. This is far simpler to do if you don’t skip about the question paper. And there’s less rustling!!

[Guest55]

Exam strategy is critical.

Very very bright students miss out every year because they don't approach the exam in the right way.

He needs to glance through each section BEFORE he starts and focus on the easy questions first and leave the hard ones until last. When he gets the time warning then he needs to STOP looking at the questions and just mark C for each unanswered one. When he has done that he can start looking at them again in the time remaining.

Does he really want to go to the school he is preparing for? DG

I'm sorry but this is very poor advice by someone who clearly is not trained to teach. Why mark (c) for example? Any choice e.g. (a) is also fine.

Work with your OWN child and find what works for them.

[moominmomma]

Exam strategy is critical.

Very very bright students miss out every year because they don't approach the exam in the right way.

He needs to glance through each section BEFORE he starts and focus on the easy questions first and leave the hard ones until last. When he gets the time warning then he needs to STOP looking at the questions and just mark C for each unanswered one. When he has done that he can start looking at them again in the time remaining.

Does he really want to go to the school he is preparing for? DG

I'm sorry but this is very poor advice by someone who clearly is not trained to teach. Why mark (c) for example? Any choice e.g. (a) is also fine.

Work with your OWN child and find what works for them.

why is this very poor advice? I think DG tip of marking C for each question once the time warning goes off is an excellent idea and I will pass this tip onto my child.