ISEB Pre-test (English) worries

[ToComSaudade]

My DS sat the ISEB Common Pre-Test, the English part, yesterday. We're abroad so he sat it over here, alone (apart from the invigilator). He finished the test very early. He has ADHD so he was actually allowed a further 10 minutes on top of the 40, but he finished it in 30 mins flat. After asking lots of questions, it seems he just sought the answers from the passages rather than reading through each passage first, so I guess this would have saved him a fair amount of time. He said that each question specified the paragraph in which to find the answer, so he didn't feel he had to read the whole thing. Not a technique I approve of nor one he was taught by the way!

My question is, finishing 10 minutes early - a good sign or a bad sign?! In ATOM mocks he has had to race through the grammar questions at the end.

He can recall quite a few of the questions, which he seems to have answered correctly, though of course I couldn't say for the questions on the passages. I did warn him not to rush! Though as an ADHD kid that usually goes in one ear and out the other. At the very least, I guess he was paying attention, to be able to tear through it so quickly. Maybe he was hyper-focussing... or maybe the complete opposite and he got so many wrong the test had enough and gave up?!

Cripes!!

Momma having kittens here...

What level of secondary school are you aiming for? Ie highly competitive London day school or mid range boarding school etc.

We’re applying for a variety of uk public schools that offer day, flexi or full boarding. All are selective, a couple of them more than the others. Do you have experience of how the pre-test works? I think him finishing early means he was consistent in his answers, but whether consistently good or consistently bad I have no idea! He finished his VR and NVR early today as well.

DD also finished her tests early and I was wondering the same. Her weak subject is maths and she only finished that with 1 minute to spare. Vr and NVR she finished 10 minutes early (she also gets extra time) so I am taking it as a positive.

The school told her it is a good sign as it means the algo knows enough to score you but imagine they might say that to keep her positive!

@farfallarocks it’s so frustrating not having a clue how they have done, nor ever finding out! This is the first exam my son has ever sat, and I no doubt have another dozen years of exam worries to come (the worries are all mine, ds has been super chilled about it all). It doesn’t help that I’ve been the one bringing him up to speed with the uk curriculum, so I feel it’s all on me if he gets a poor result. He has finished 10 mins early in everything so far, he finished VR in 12 minutes! I’m just going to have to believe he’s a genius until proven otherwise 😂😂. Just maths to come, surely the hardest of the 4 tests…

The wait is the worst part. So nerve-wracking. We did this last year and from what I understand with the adaptive test, once they have all the information they need the exam ends. Atom did say you do not want your dc saying the adaptive test was easy, because the more they get correct, the more difficult it gets. However, its impossible to guess how a dc did I think until you get the results (moving to the next stage if you did well). Dd thought she failed her exam because she could not finish the math and just barely finished the English. She said Math kept giving her really long problems with fractions that took a while to solve. In the end she ended up doing well and got an offer from the school. We have heard of dc who finished early and passed, and dc who finished early and did not pass. Basically, you just have to wait to find out. But I would tell your ds if he keeps finishing early to slow down a little to make sure he is not making any mistakes. Good luck!

@SamPoodle123 I keep telling him not to rush but he does love to be fast…he finished early in maths too 🙄…he seems to have got a lot right but definitely 3 wrong (he could remember the questions)…he said the first questions were fairly simple arithmetic but then got harder. He didn’t find the exam easy which is a relief but he also didn’t access any super-long worded questions so i suspect he may not have got onto the really hard questions. Nothing can be done about it now though!