exampapersplus SPJ 7+ papers

[howtobecalm]

Hi fellow 7+ parents, my DS will try for SPJ 7+ in a few weeks. He has been doing ok (around 70% on avg but it varies) in the exampapersplus individual papers. Last weekend, we did one SPJ pack and it was so hard in comparison to the other exampapersplus papers. difficulty level went up massively and now not sure what else to do given we have just a few weeks to go. Is anyone else in the same boat?

Hi @howtobecalm
First don t worry. My son went trhough assessment last year, he is at SPJ now. The EPP papers in my opinion are way too difficult compared to what the boys are being asked at the exams. I remember buying a 8+ pack 4 years ago for my DD and the same questions are now in the 7+.
My opinion is that it is a bit of a "making money on the back of mums fear" business.
When your child doesn't score the 80% they prescribed, you are tempted to buy more and more.. and they make it more difficult every year. They will probably have GCSE type question in it in 5 years time which is ridiculous.
SPJ places lot of emphasis on the second round anyway and look at the boys, notably how they behave, if they participate, keen to engage..
Continue what you are doing with your son and don t worry about scores. Last year some people said that the actual exams (notably VR/NVR) had nothing to compare with this SPJ specific papers that were pitched at the wrong level.

@Lolakath19 thanks for your reassuring and kind words...I am freaking out and feel I failed my DS by not prepping him properly...he never complains about tests or any of the extra work but I feel awful I even made him do these silly papers now...I hope you are right...thanks again..

Ignore these papers. All parents I spoke to were shocked as their kids who normally scored 80-10% (including my DS) scored around 30-40% with these “SPJ” papers which have nothing to do with exams.
My son was within the very top of SPJ ranking after the results were out.
ignore these papers.
:)

@2minutesplease thanks :) well done to your DS - I did not know they shared the rankings :) if you have any tips for the exam, please do share. cheers.

We did the pretestplus for St. Paul’s and I feel the same way… but this thread makes me feel a bit more hopeful :)

Pls kindly share ur experience in spj.
we heard construction continues until 2024 and onwards ? Until 2025? 2026?
we saw a huge contrast of junior v Senior building quality .

We tried all spj papers as mentioned above
then did 8+ for fun.
shockingly only a few words - numbers changed 7 v 8 papers .
i won’t waste money on them ever again .

The EPP are not always written at the correct level. They use a Dickens text in one of the 7+ packs! For what you get they are expensive.

Fwiw we relied almost solely on EPP resources for both 7+ and 11+ for my kids and found them spot on every time. Provided lots of useful info on second stage testing/interviews etc too.

Even the epp english?

@2minutesplease can you please share some tips on how you prepared for the exam? We’re just at the start of this journey with my DS, and want to sit the 2023 7+ at spj

Also does anyone know why there’s “reading comprehension” exam in the spj specific epp paper? On spj website it is not mentioned, so maybe epp is outdated?

@2minutesplease How's the prep going ?

My son is entering Y1 and we are looking at SPJS and WUS.

@Mamamama1234 Did you get to the bottom of this ?