Standarised scores
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Standarised scores
Hi,
So after requesting my sons scores from CEM I was provided his raw scores and standardised scores for Maths, NVR and Verbal. Can anyone help me (either via on this post or by private message) in reading and understanding the standardised scores. I'll give them in general terms below...
Topic A >100
Topic B >120
Topic C >120 and higher than B
Thanks.
So after requesting my sons scores from CEM I was provided his raw scores and standardised scores for Maths, NVR and Verbal. Can anyone help me (either via on this post or by private message) in reading and understanding the standardised scores. I'll give them in general terms below...
Topic A >100
Topic B >120
Topic C >120 and higher than B
Thanks.
Re: Standarised scores
You’ve not given much information - assuming these are standardised scores?
100 would usually be average and 120 above average.
This CEM blog may help https://www.cem.org/blog/standardised-scores-101/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
100 would usually be average and 120 above average.
This CEM blog may help https://www.cem.org/blog/standardised-scores-101/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Standarised scores
How did you request those scores from CEM? What's the process?
Re: Standarised scores
Hi
I suspect JayC obtained the scores by requesting a Subject Access Request (as well as the paying the fee & ID) which you can do under data protection rules.
My interpretation of these standardised scores would be that your son scored very well in 2 areas & average in the other one. I don't know your reason for requesting the scores. If you were hoping to get into Pates, then he might not have scored enough in all 3 areas to meet the qualifying rank (for example he might have ended to get 110+ in each area). Other grammar schools will do their own ranking / weighting but Pates as far as I'm aware of (& its a couple of years since we did the 11+) is the only one where you need to achieve a set score in all three. Each school will set it's own qualifying criteria & hence why your ranks will be different for each school as well as you are only up against the cohort who opted to share results with that school.
Hope that helps.
I suspect JayC obtained the scores by requesting a Subject Access Request (as well as the paying the fee & ID) which you can do under data protection rules.
My interpretation of these standardised scores would be that your son scored very well in 2 areas & average in the other one. I don't know your reason for requesting the scores. If you were hoping to get into Pates, then he might not have scored enough in all 3 areas to meet the qualifying rank (for example he might have ended to get 110+ in each area). Other grammar schools will do their own ranking / weighting but Pates as far as I'm aware of (& its a couple of years since we did the 11+) is the only one where you need to achieve a set score in all three. Each school will set it's own qualifying criteria & hence why your ranks will be different for each school as well as you are only up against the cohort who opted to share results with that school.
Hope that helps.
Re: Standarised scores
Yes I requested a SAR, they took a whole month and then I had to ring them to remind them that as per FOI they had gone over the time limit, and if I didn't hear anything back within 2 days I would be making a complaint to the FOI commissioner...then got the information within an hour (hehe).
Reason for finding out was we just wanted to know from a numbers perspective how our son done. Lucky for us he also remembered (roughly) how many questions were in each section, so we have been able to work out raw % score and standardised score.
I didn't mention the areas but here they are: -
> 100 for verbal
> 120 for maths
> 120 for NVR but higher then maths
I though his raw % on NVR was lower than what he can do but the standardised scores tells me otherwise. But now we know where we need to focus with him, i.e. Verbal / English. Apart from reading books any ideas from anyone on how to help improve overall verbal ability? Bearing in mind transitioning from 11 plus verbal to year 7 / GCSE English (and other subject areas that require verbal ability) are 2 different things.
On a side note this whole Pates thing I find interesting because when I spoke to the Headmaster about weighting on the open day he said they weighted Maths 50% higher then the other 2, he never mentioned this minimum score stuff, so not sure how that equates to this point about minimum score in each section.
Reason for finding out was we just wanted to know from a numbers perspective how our son done. Lucky for us he also remembered (roughly) how many questions were in each section, so we have been able to work out raw % score and standardised score.
I didn't mention the areas but here they are: -
> 100 for verbal
> 120 for maths
> 120 for NVR but higher then maths
I though his raw % on NVR was lower than what he can do but the standardised scores tells me otherwise. But now we know where we need to focus with him, i.e. Verbal / English. Apart from reading books any ideas from anyone on how to help improve overall verbal ability? Bearing in mind transitioning from 11 plus verbal to year 7 / GCSE English (and other subject areas that require verbal ability) are 2 different things.
On a side note this whole Pates thing I find interesting because when I spoke to the Headmaster about weighting on the open day he said they weighted Maths 50% higher then the other 2, he never mentioned this minimum score stuff, so not sure how that equates to this point about minimum score in each section.
Re: Standarised scores
It is stated in the Admissions Policy on the school's website:JayC wrote:Yes I requested a SAR, they took a whole month and then I had to ring them to remind them that as per FOI they had gone over the time limit, and if I didn't hear anything back within 2 days I would be making a complaint to the FOI commissioner...then got the information within an hour (hehe).
Reason for finding out was we just wanted to know from a numbers perspective how our son done. Lucky for us he also remembered (roughly) how many questions were in each section, so we have been able to work out raw % score and standardised score.
I didn't mention the areas but here they are: -
> 100 for verbal
> 120 for maths
> 120 for NVR but higher then maths
I though his raw % on NVR was lower than what he can do but the standardised scores tells me otherwise. But now we know where we need to focus with him, i.e. Verbal / English. Apart from reading books any ideas from anyone on how to help improve overall verbal ability? Bearing in mind transitioning from 11 plus verbal to year 7 / GCSE English (and other subject areas that require verbal ability) are 2 different things.
On a side note this whole Pates thing I find interesting because when I spoke to the Headmaster about weighting on the open day he said they weighted Maths 50% higher then the other 2, he never mentioned this minimum score stuff, so not sure how that equates to this point about minimum score in each section.
https://www.patesgs.org/pgsuploads/Pate ... SION-1.pdf
Qualifying Standard and Oversubscription Criteria
In order to be eligible for admission to the school, candidates must achieve the Qualifying Standard, to include minimum standards in each part of the test. This is not a pre-defined pass mark, but reflects a child’s position in the rank order of standardised scores in the Admissions Test.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
Re: Standarised scores
As a rough guide does anyone have an idea what Pates would be looking for in terms minimum standardised scores - 100’s, 110’s, 120’s, 130’s, etc.
Re: Standarised scores
Are you just asking out of curiosity, JayC? Because surely it's all academic (pardon the pun) now you've had your son's scores and put in your CAF? And I'm assuming he didn't qualify for Pates, given your question? Unless you are asking because you are planning to appeal? Even if you are planning to appeal, Pates already know what his scores were, so this isn't useful information for the appeal. You'd be better looking for evidence from elsewhere that they don't already have that proves that he was expected to perform even better on the VR than he did - and a good reason why he didn't (extenuating circumstances) - and as he already got a really good score, that may be tricky.JayC wrote:As a rough guide does anyone have an idea what Pates would be looking for in terms minimum standardised scores - 100’s, 110’s, 120’s, 130’s, etc.
Regarding areas to work on - it all changes in Year 7. The CAT test was just to get into the school. They may sit another one at the beginning of Year 7 to baseline them (Ribston did but we weren't told the results) but after that, it's no longer about NVR/ VR etc - it's about lots of different subject areas - some of which your son will undoubtedly be better at than others. So you may find that actually, it's history or chemistry or even art (for example) that you need to help him with. As for English, it will be reading texts and writing in various forms. It will definitely not be doing verbal reasoning exercises!
Your son has obviously done really well and I'm sure will have no trouble keeping up at school so maybe you don't need to worry too much about all this - he'll have his SATS at the end of the year anyway (which also don't test VR) so should just focus on the work for those for now. Next year you'll see the kind of homework assignments they get for English (and other subjects) and this is where you'll be able to help him if you still feel he needs it.
Is your son going to Tommies? Mine will be starting there in September, and from what I've read on here they use the 11+ ranking combined with their SATS score to do the baselining I referred to above. My daughter is in Year 8 at Ribston so I know a lot about the transition from Year 6 to Year 7!
Re: Standarised scores
As Pates is the undisputed champion for results I was asking out of curiosity as I always like to try and compare performance against what is perceived the best from a pure numbers point of view.
Because of his rank I hadn't considered to appeal for Pates, but had I had the standardised scores and his year 6 CAT scores before the CAF form had to be submitted I may have considered appealing...it seems to me that the difference between rank 1 to 200 is very small.
But having said all of that my son is going STRS and I actually think that is the best place for him in terms of what he needs (i.e. more disciplined approach at STRS as opposed to the more creative independence approach at Pates).
I do find it strange how up to 11 years old these kids have verbal reasoning pushed at them via SATs, CATs & 11+ but from what I can see from my sons school very little essay writing. Maybe things have changed compared to when I did GCSE's but essay writing was very important back then!
Because of his rank I hadn't considered to appeal for Pates, but had I had the standardised scores and his year 6 CAT scores before the CAF form had to be submitted I may have considered appealing...it seems to me that the difference between rank 1 to 200 is very small.
But having said all of that my son is going STRS and I actually think that is the best place for him in terms of what he needs (i.e. more disciplined approach at STRS as opposed to the more creative independence approach at Pates).
I do find it strange how up to 11 years old these kids have verbal reasoning pushed at them via SATs, CATs & 11+ but from what I can see from my sons school very little essay writing. Maybe things have changed compared to when I did GCSE's but essay writing was very important back then!
Re: Standarised scores
They do a fair bit of writing at my son's school but it's not essays - more stories. He finds it frustrating as they are pushed to write quickly and then have to spend lots of time editing their work and finding more exciting language etc. He enjoys writing so he uses the words he wants to use in the first place and would rather have longer to develop the story than waste time going over and over it. I think it's all about targets - they have to demonstrate certain things in their work rather than just enjoy writing.
As for the 2 schools - I too could have been tempted to appeal for Pates as he was so close to the cutoff for qualifying and it would have been so convenient for us but I didn't want to put us all through the stress and uncertainty when I thought there was very little chance of succeeding (for the reasons I wrote above) without extenuating circumstances. So we put STR first on the CAF and left Pates off. I did have a pang when someone wrote on here that Pates encourages them to believe they can do anything. My son flies when he is confident but is a perfectionist and can be very hard on himself. I would love him to be in a school with that ethos. However, he also responds very well to structure and I'm hoping STR's approach of instilling a work ethic and organisational skills in them will be good for him. He doesn't really see the point of Year 6 homework, which is understandable after the 11+ but I don't think he's going to be thrilled when faced with all the homework they get in Year 7 and the fact that he'll have a lot less free time! I gather STR do homework detentions though so the threat of that will soon get him used to it!
As for the 2 schools - I too could have been tempted to appeal for Pates as he was so close to the cutoff for qualifying and it would have been so convenient for us but I didn't want to put us all through the stress and uncertainty when I thought there was very little chance of succeeding (for the reasons I wrote above) without extenuating circumstances. So we put STR first on the CAF and left Pates off. I did have a pang when someone wrote on here that Pates encourages them to believe they can do anything. My son flies when he is confident but is a perfectionist and can be very hard on himself. I would love him to be in a school with that ethos. However, he also responds very well to structure and I'm hoping STR's approach of instilling a work ethic and organisational skills in them will be good for him. He doesn't really see the point of Year 6 homework, which is understandable after the 11+ but I don't think he's going to be thrilled when faced with all the homework they get in Year 7 and the fact that he'll have a lot less free time! I gather STR do homework detentions though so the threat of that will soon get him used to it!
