Paper Work Time

The summer term is nearly over and for those of you taking exams in September, now would be a good time to turn your attention to sending off for application forms for those schools in which your are interested. Many schools now even have the various forms on their websites and by following a few simple links you can download them and print them off. For those of you in Greater Manchester, just navigate to the 11 Plus page on this site and I have links set up to many of the schools which should save you some time.

Get Your Photos

More and more schools are now requesting passport size photos of students due to sit examinations. I'm not sure exactly why this is although I have a few theories - nonetheless find out if your school requires it and get them done nice and ready!

Important

When you have completed your application forms, try to get some type of confirmation that they have been received. Some might allow you to complete the forms online and submit them which normally sends a receipt to your email; others allow you to include a simple, self, stamped, addressed postcard which the school will mark or stamp officially and return to you when they have received your forms. If you live close by you may even be able to drop them in personally and ask them to stamp a card to show that you have done this. Whatever form it takes, try to get some sort of receipt just in case something goes missing.

Nearer the Time   

Check the pack of information that you receive and find out when you should receive your number/exam information. Quite often now this can be about 2 weeks before the exam itself. If this is the case make sure you have the date marked and if nothing arrives during that time get straight onto the school. Some even stipulate that this is your responsibility. So make sure you chase every piece of paperwork all the way from start to finish!

That's all for now but I'll have more info as we hit the end of July and mock days approach.

Time continues to race by and as we head towards summer and those long holidays it's important to plan out your final weeks of practice. Many students will face exams early in September of year 6 so what can you do to be properly prepared?

1) Make sure that at this stage you are really getting to grips with practising the test in a form as close as possible to how it will be on the day. Make sure that you know if your child has to sit exams in standard or multiple choice format.

2) Plan out your practice through the summer and talk to your child about this in advance - as the weather gets better it can be difficult to get motivated so I always suggest planning some study time in the morning followed by fun time in the afternoon.

3) Make sure that you get your child to try and sit through an entire test day scenario - this will show them what it might be like on the day and for how long they will have to concentrate. In the Trafford area I run mock days each Saturday 7th, 14th and 21st of August so students can get used to taking a full set of tests (these are all on Saturday which is when the Trafford exams are too so it adds even more authenticity). Email me if you are interested in joining one of these test days.

4) Use any practice tests to pinpoint areas of weakness and go through these again thoroughly so your child has a better understanding.

5) Make sure you are strict on timings - remember, any questions omitted will be marked as incorrect so get your child to focus on finshing every paper.

Good luck and keep practising hard.

Well, what a busy week I've had - and all my students too. This week we have been tackling more full verbal reasoning papers aswell as having to practise of some non-verbal too. In addition to all that, several of the schools in this area (Trafford) have their own English papers so we've started to look at those formats aswell!

Using Multiple Choice Grids

Many schools and areas around the country are turning to these now as they do not require someone to mark them. They can be fed through a scanner and marked in minutes. But you must get your child to practise filling them in correctly.

How do you do this? Well, the best way to show possible errors in terms of knowing the correct answer but putting it in the wrong place is to have your child mark all the multiple choice answers on the test paper. Then get them to put each answer on the multiple choice grid. Make sure that they do this as they go along. So, for example, they would answer question 1 on their paper then mark its corresponding answer on the multiple choice grid before moving onto question number 2. After they have finished, mark both papers - you and they will be surprised as to how many answers they might have correct on their paper but have either missed them out, marked the wrong answer or put it against the wrong question on the multiple choice grid.

So how do you then use this? Show your child where they knew the correct answer but did not mark it correctly on the grid - they should very quickly learn how this could affect their score. Also, when getting your child to check their work at the end of a practice test, get them to do these checks before checking any working...

1) Have I answered every question on the grid?

2) Have I marked more than one answer on a question where there should be only one answer?

3) Have I made sure any changes have been rubbed out properly?

4) Do the answers on my paper match those on the grid question by question?

Once they have done these simple checks, then they can go back and check actual working out.

Keep practising and make sure you start using those grids so you're ready for September!

At this time of year, as we head towards summer, it is time to start thinking about individual schools, applications and details of any differences which there may be.

Types of Exams: it's really important that students become familiar with the correct types of exam so that they do not spend additional time on the day trying to fathom out exactly what needs doing. So find out if the school that your child is sitting for uses standard format examinations or multiple choice. Some schools in the area in which I live, use a combination of the two so in this case it is vitally important to find out exactly what each paper might look like.

Standard formats require students to work out the answers and then write them in the space provided. Multiple choice formats require students to put their final answers on a specially designed grid which is often then fed through a computer and marked in this way.

How do you find out more? Try contacting the schools at the first instance; many will be willing to either send examples through the post or even sell papers which look similar to those which students will have to take on the day. Don't just rely on what people from previous years tell you and don't just search on the internet either since articles and opinions go out of date! Exams can change year on year so do your homework and make sure that your child practises getting their answers written down in the correct format.

Looking at many schools' websites at this time of year will also help you find out about many possible open days. Whilst these tend to be carefully managed to show schools in their best light, they can be very useful to get a feel and also give you an opportunity to ask any questions so try to go along and see several of those that you are interested in.

And finally...these week's problem is one of those pesky algebra types which seem to creep into mathematics papers. An example might look like this...

Bill pays his mobile phone bill 'x' every month and buys a new ring tone 'y' every quarter of a year, which equation represents this information if Bill pays for his phone for 1 year?

a) 12xy

b) 12x + 12y

c) 4x + 4y

d) 12x + 4y

e) 4x + 12y

The answer in this case is D. This is because we are told that Bill pays x amount each month; we're also told he has his phone for a year so he must pay x amount 12 times as there are 12 months in the year - 12x. We're also told he buys a new ring tone each quarter; as there are 4 quarters we should also have 4y. So the final answer is 12x + 4y.

I hope that helps, and should you have any other problems drop me aline and I'll endeavour to help. More next week.

Welcome to the first entry in this blog, aimed at helping parents and students prepare for the 11 Plus and similar entrance examinations.

Why blog?

Well, simply put, it makes sense. As I work through the week preparing students for their exams in this coming September and October, I thought it might help others if I let you know what areas we're practising on a weekly basis and questions which my students raise.

So what have we been up to this week?

This week we've been finishing off about the thirtieth type of verbal reasoning question and trying out some practice papers. If you haven't begun looking at verbal reasoning yet - now would be the time to start but you'll have to look at lots of different types before trying test papers - this will give students the best chance of succeeding in their practice tests.

A common question that came up this week whilst finishing off our verbal reasoning exercises was, "Mr. Williams - aren't these maths questions?" The questions we were looking at involved alot of number work. Some of these questions types could occur on either a maths or a verbal reasoning paper so they are well worth practising. The sorts of questions I'm talking about are those which involve simple substitution - for example:

if A = 3, B = 2, C = 1, D = 4 and E = 5, what is 2a + 3b - 2d?

Remember that a number in front of a letter means multiply so 2a = 6, 3b = 6 and 2d = 8. So 6 + 6 - 8 = 4

Our final answer would be 4 and often you are asked to show this as a letter; D = 4 so D would be marked on the answer sheet. Look out for these as they would be equally at home on a maths or verbal reasoning paper.

Next week I'll let you know where we are up to in other subject areas for our tests in the autumn and look at another type of question which might be of use to you all. Keep practising and good luck.