Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

CEM 11 Plus is the selective entrance exam administered by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, Department of Education, University of Durham.

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Mumof32018
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:07 am

Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by Mumof32018 »

My son is doing the entrance exam at Belmont/Mill Hill which is an online CEM select test. We just did a practice test through a provider called removed by a moderator and only got 10/23 for the comprehension as he ran out of time as he spent far too long reading the passage. I read it too and struggle to see how a 10 year old can read a passage in that time and answer that many questions. Any advice or recommendations as to how to help him?
Daogroupie
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by Daogroupie »

How long was the passage? CEM is all about speed and letting go. How many minutes did he get for the section? DG
Mumof32018
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:07 am

Re: Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by Mumof32018 »

I think it was also 23 minutes - I will check. The average score was 13/23 so looks like they all found it tough.
JayC
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:33 am

Re: Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by JayC »

Hi I always recommend to children to not read the text and instead go straight to the questions and then scan for unique words in the text based on the question and text. As the other post mentioned CEM is all about SPEED and also knowing when to cut a question off and so therefore putting your best guess.

It sounds obvious but if you don't answer all the questions (or the majority of them) then you cannot get marks for those questions.

Typically you will find (depending on what section it is) that for a CEM test children are able to answer 80% to 90% of the questions with the remaining 20% to 10% being pure guesses because of time.

This theory by some that you can take your time and only answer 75% but at high quality is a serious mistake because even if you take your time a child at 10 years old will still make mistakes. I have seen the actual CEM result of a top 3% child in my area and even they did not get close to 100% and therefore likely made mistakes.

Its tough asking a child to work at speed, with accuracy and also make decisions about certain questions, but this is why mock's and lots of them are very important.

Hope the above helps.
J
bridge
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Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:38 am

Re: Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by bridge »

JayC wrote: This theory by some that you can take your time and only answer 75% but at high quality is a serious mistake because even if you take your time a child at 10 years old will still make mistakes. I have seen the actual CEM result of a top 3% child in my area and even they did not get close to 100% and therefore likely made mistakes.

This is definitely true!
Deb70
Posts: 340
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:00 pm

Re: Online CEM test - comprehension very time pressured

Post by Deb70 »

Yes my DS was advised to not read the passage first, he skim read it and finished the questions but said the timing was tight.
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