Done practice paper today - concerned about how long took to do

[mykiddies]

Today we did a practice paper. It was recommended should not take any longer than 45 minutes to do so I suggested DD do one and we see how far she got at the 45 minutes. Basically am concerned at how long it is taking dd to answer some questions. She didn't get the paper finished got 17 right out of 26 and there was 44 questions in total. She is top of class in maths results are 90+%. Maths and reading about 3 years ahead. I am not sure how I go about the best way in trying to speed things up so she gets the paper finished. Some of her working out is very long which I don't understand and I also think that these papers are much harder to the work that is being done in class. Any advice appreciated.

Is this for the 11+? If so, that is the point of the Practice papers. Most people can do the Questions but only those coached/rehearsed/well practiced in the exam technique will finish in time.

If it is Maths, will she do Multi Choice or Standard answers?

What are you practicing for??

Practising

(Sorry)

My dd was like this in the beginning and did fine on the day - she only had about a months prep. Have a look on the 11plus forum for tips on how to speed up.

This is for Northern Ireland. Our 11+ was scrapped. It is AQE based papers and the answers are standard answers. Her working out is v long and it seems to take maybe 5 mins for some questions. For example for 25% she had put 25 over 100 and she knows it is a quarter etc. Another question was prime nos. and mean numbers which she says they haven't done yet. I believe the papers are much harder to the work they are doing in school from what I have heard. I just want to do the best for her in terms of how to do the papers properly, how many, etc.

don't worry about it, just keep doing more and more papers and she will naturally start speeding up as she recognises that she has done similar questions before. It is early days yet, best to concentrate on getting the questions right at this stage, she can work on timing later. My DS was slow initially but has speeded up with practice. We are in England and are doing multiple choice, but I think the standard is similar to the AQE ones.

ok claig and others thanks. She was upset tonight as she got some wrong which she's not used to and I don't want her confidence to drop or to put the fear of god into her. I know school is finished at the end of this month so what would you say I should be doing in the summer months with her. A few papers a week, one a day. Also when is the best time to do them. I have 2 days a week where she is at home and I can give her my attention with them. Once school starts in Sept. we have 2 months til the exams so really we need to buckle down in the summer months off.

I think doing a paper every 1 or 2 days is good going. She can work on the ones that she got wrong or missed out and redo the papers again.

Hi mykiddies - my DS is going to be doing the same exam next year.
I agree the tests seem difficult don't they? My DS school is doing one test a week at the moment, and are preparing us a summer workbook for over the holidays.

We are struggling with the english & comprehension - and it would appear my DS has a very low grasp of vocabulary, he just doesnt seem to know what I would have thought are fairly common words.

Our school have advised us not to do tests of our own outside of school, but just to do revision of maths topics and english etc

I would practice exam technique with your dd.

So, read the paper first, circle the questions that will take more time and then do the easier/quicker ones first.
Then go back and do the harder/more involved ones.
Then check at the end to make sure no silly mistakes.

Practice timestables as good recall will help with all sorts of questions.
Practice percentages and fractions as well so that she recognises co-relations. (25% or 1/4)

Agree with revision as well.
You can revise things like mean,median, mode on the BBC website.

A couple of practice papers a week is good with some revision as well of the topics she is not so familiar with.
Build up to the timing gradually.
At first time how many she gets finished in 45mins and challenge her to increase that number until she is comfortably within the time limit.
The technique is really key though.

oiteach thank you for your response that is very helpful to me.

you're very welcome. I have two going through 11+ at the moment so I feel your pain!