Getting Test Ready
The 11+ is a timed test, so your child would need to practice answering questions correctly and quickly.
Start by Working on Accuracy…
When your child is simply learning just how to do each question type, it’s a great suggestion to concentrate on precision and also understanding, as opposed to speed. You can work with their speed when they’re more confident.
When your child has actually attempted some practice questions or a practice paper as well as you’ve marked it, you may wish to discuss the questions they misunderstood, so they understand exactly how they need to have resolved them. You might also return to these harder questions at a later day to see to it they can still understand them right. If there are certain topics or skills that your child is regularly responding to incorrectly (for example, multiplication questions or cloze questions), you can always target these areas with additional practice.
While pass marks can differ, your child ought to aim to get over 85% in any practice test papers they do. If you’re making use of the Assessment Tests in the Practice Books, it’s a great concept to make use of the answer sheets provided after that your child can attempt them once again later, to see if they can enhance their score.
…then Work on Speed
In the real 11+ test, children are intentionally put under time condition. This assists schools with spotting good applicants and the best ones. The quicker your child is, the more questions they’ll attempt. When your child can correctly attempt 11+ questions, apply these tips to assist them with improving their speed:
• To begin with, have a go at giving them a lot of twenty questions, and see how rapidly they can answer them. Progressively lessen the time they need to answer the set, or grow the quantity of questions they answer at one sitting.
• Find out the timings of the real test if possible — how much time child will have, and what number of questions they’ll need to attempt. When they’re revising, allow them less time than this to do a similar number of questions.
• Encourage your child to check their answers only if they have time toward the end of the test.
• You can introduce games to make them work quicker — try to make use of a stopwatch to time each question individually and get your child to ring a bell or shout when they’ve solved it.
In the Run-Up to the Test, start Working on Test Technique
Your child will score better on the 11+ in the event that they improve their test technique. Good test technique is also significant for their SATs and different tests during their education. When they begin working through assessment papers, remind them to do the following things:
• Read the front of the paper and enter the right information on it.
• Skip any questions that are harder, or which are taking quite a while — they can return to them if there’s time toward the end.
• If they can’t do a question and they’re running out of time, make a reasonable guess. For multiple-choice questions, they might have the option to exclude a couple of alternatives that certainly aren’t right, which gives a higher possibility of speculating which of the remaining ones is correct.
If your child’s test is in multiple choice format, there are some certain skills to practise:
• Marking the right box quickly and rapidly clearly with a horizontal line.
• Making sure they mark the appropriate response in the right box, particularly if they skip a question.
• If they don’t complete the paper, filling in the remainder of the appropriate responses randomly.
Get your child to attempt some practice test papers under strict test settings. They should work in a quiet and without assistance. Try making their experience as much closer to the real test as you possibly can.
