It's beyond me how any child manages to pass the grammar school test

[emkana]

We're not there yet (oldest child is 7) but some friends are and they are telling me about it and it sounds horrendous - the pressure, and such random and difficult questions - and 80 questions in 50 minutes!!!

and btw the way, ds's are at a state junior,so this school obviously does some work on the 11+

Where I lived the abolished grammar schools in about 1970! So even I at age 46 didn't have them in my youth. I can't understand how the Government can justify them in some areas but not others. Do they think children in Ken need selective education but children in Newcastle don't? What's so special about Bucks and Kent chidlren?

Yes, they absolutley need support to understand the questions as they are different to anything they have done before.
Sod's law - I (only at weekend) through the test papers out and they had been sat there a year.
I would have written some on here.
Has anybody got any test papers - write a couple of the questions on here - then you can judge for yourself how difficult they are if you have never seen them before.

I agree with ingles-if they have high IQs they don't need it explained. If they are only average of course they need it explained. Selective schools are perceived as better and those who like the system never contemplate that their own DC may not be grammar school material. I have yet to hear anyone campaign to bring back the secondary modern!

I wish they could devise a system to test where no one knows the questions and everyone sees them fresh, for the first time ever, when they do the actual exam. That would be a fair system.

I have a maths paper beside me...

Insert signs to make the following correct.
5 _ 5 1 = 13_12

Shamefully, dd1 who has just passed.... Cant see how to do it

• + +

Sorry, - + -

Oh yes she can. She has just turned back to the playstation and read the whole thing including add and subtracts back to me without looking at the page and while palying wallace and gromit lol

It is + + -
5+5+1=11
13-12=11

It is my point entirely.
If they see it they are grammar school material-if they need the question explained they are not!

Another is

How many metres must be added to 1.35km to make 4km?

piece of nonsnse, this sorry existenece of a handful of grammar schools in some pockets of the country.

In these sentences a word of four letters is hidden at the end of one word and the beginning of another.

They saw that all the cake was gone.

This item is out of stock.

School began later during winter months.

Experts made skiing look very easy.

heres a verbal reasoning test on the bbc website If anyone wants a go.

I tend to think that if they need tutoring from 7/8 to pass an 11+ then they shouldn't really be attending a grammar school anyway but then I guess they'll be stretched....

My dd's school does/will not prepare children for the 11+ but when I sat the 11+ at the same school, 25 years ago, we were tutored for about half a term by the then-HT on verbal/non-verbal reasoning and logic. Children who opted not to sit the paper worked in another classroom for those classes. FWIW, the 11+ results are skewed in that there are 120 places for boys and girls at each school but more girls than boys tend to pass the exam. So the pass-rate for boys is lower than it is for girls to keep the schools single sex even though the schools draw from outside the borough .

tall
sit
term
desk

The maths one is is just straight forward-count forward to 2 km add another 2km

None of this, so far needs tutoring.

13-12 does not = 11

you were so wrong, abbey

tall
site
term
desk

other one is x x +

Sorry!!!! That is what happens when you don't think!

site

not sit

oh these little slips will cost someone a grammar school place.

Children's ability to check varies wildly.

these tests sound daft. I don't understand why people are answering the questions here. Is there a prize?

Sorry Mary-I will go with your 2nd answer.
This is perhaps why I failed 11+ making wrong assumptions! I still don't think it needs tutoring.

That's why half the battle is reading the question properly and making sure you understand what it's asking.