St Olaves Mock - weird results

[Broomleigh]

We got our son's results back. Headline figure percentage within cohort 51% - broken down English 88%, Maths 16%, VR 26%, NVR 78%.

That's odd enough, in that he's probably stronger on Maths than English, but looking at the raw results data is even odder - a sudden drop off after question 16 (the first 4 maths questions right, only 2 of the remaining 11 right), then back on track from question 36:

Q1-16 95% correct
Q17-35 26% correct
Q36-55 80% correct (he didn't get to the end, if you include the ones he didn't try 73%)

One other oddity - the summary says 3 questions not attempted, but the raw data suggests 2. Considering that the whole process is automated, I can't work that one out.

Any possible explanation?

Obviously one is that he's just not very good at Maths and Verbal Reasoning, but that doesn't fit in with our experience. Perhaps he got one out on the answer sheet, but he claims to have checked thoroughly. Copying - either off someone who was very good at the beginning and end, or someone who was no good in the middle (unlikely, as it's not his style, but we have to consider all options). Brain freeze - perfectly possible, but I don't think he'd have got back on track at the end. Computerised marking got something wrong?

We were hoping that the mock would clarify things as well as being useful experience before doing the real things, but this has just confused us (and him) massively.

[olucares]

We got our son's results back. Headline figure percentage within cohort 51% - broken down English 88%, Maths 16%, VR 26%, NVR 78%.

That's odd enough, in that he's probably stronger on Maths than English, but looking at the raw results data is even odder - a sudden drop off after question 16 (the first 4 maths questions right, only 2 of the remaining 11 right), then back on track from question 36:

Q1-16 95% correct
Q17-35 26% correct
Q36-55 80% correct (he didn't get to the end, if you include the ones he didn't try 73%)

One other oddity - the summary says 3 questions not attempted, but the raw data suggests 2. Considering that the whole process is automated, I can't work that one out.

Any possible explanation?

Obviously one is that he's just not very good at Maths and Verbal Reasoning, but that doesn't fit in with our experience. Perhaps he got one out on the answer sheet, but he claims to have checked thoroughly. Copying - either off someone who was very good at the beginning and end, or someone who was no good in the middle (unlikely, as it's not his style, but we have to consider all options). Brain freeze - perfectly possible, but I don't think he'd have got back on track at the end. Computerised marking got something wrong?

We were hoping that the mock would clarify things as well as being useful experience before doing the real things, but this has just confused us (and him) massively.

My son did the mock the week before yours, we got our results last week and I should say that the results initially sent were wrong, they sent an updated result a few days after, so it may well be the case with yours as well. The first result sent, they said he scored 42/60 (91st percentile) which they corrected to 48/60 (89th percentile). They said their system didn't capture the comprehension scores correctly. So it could be some of the scores from this week's result haven't been captured correctly as well.

[Broomleigh]

Thanks olucares, that's useful to know. We'll wait in hope!

[hermanmunster]

If it was using an answer sheet, I wonder if he got out of sync?

[ChalkyC]

Wow Olucares - at 37/60 my son was only on 40% centile!

Agree - I wonder whether he got confused on the answer sheet?

[Broomleigh]

Could be - I asked him if he might have got out of sync, but he said he'd checked, and presumably he'd have noticed when he got back in sync. It was the first time he's used an answer sheet like that, so if it makes him doubly careful next time, so much the better.

[thickasabrick]

You all sound like you didn't get to see the actual questions and answer papers!

If you don't get the questions and answers with the feedback, then that is pretty useless tbh. You need to obviously be able to check where your sons went wrong otherwise why bother!

[grgygirl]

Please contact the mock test team as they can double check the paper.

[Broomleigh]

grgygirl - thanks, yes, I've been in touch so hopefully they'll have a look.

Thickasabrick - no, you don't get to see the question and answer papers. As they're a PTA run test to help school funds, presumably they've got one test that they set every year and won't want to release it. The main reason for doing it is to face exam conditions without the results mattering - though a set of consistent results would have helped to give us some sort of clue as to his chances in the real thing too.

[suxeprotolondonlo]

DS scored 44/60 on the first test 8th of June having not had any practice before, never did any reasoning so understandably VR and NVR were poor. English Comprehension was 13/15 but the percentile was 67%, does that mean 33% of the top candidates scored 14 and 15/15? This shows the comprehension test was not very good at differentiating candidates.