11+ Tutoring Question

[FiveHoursCommute]

Our 10 year old has had a tutor for the last year in order to sit the 11+ for the super selective closest to us. She's been doing okay but we suspect the tutor is overplaying her ability.
She sat a mock Verbal Reasoning paper today and when her results came back, the tutor said she was doing 'incredibly well'.
Those of you who know about such things, what % do you think a child would need to be classed as doing 'incredibly well?'

To be doing 'incredibly well' for a superselective, I'd want my child to regularly be scoring 95-100% in all tested subjects tbh. To be doing well but with room for improvement, anything over 85% regularly, with no scores below 85%.

Well above 90% IMO.

I would agree that she needs to be 95% or above in the practice papers i.e. GL assessment/NFER (though there is a considerable range of difficulty in various tests).

I would also expect that the question types have been throughly learned and also any issues to do with technique to have been ironed out. If there are still weaknesses in verbal reasoning it could be that her vocab is not up to scratch and the tutor should be addressing that as a matter of urgency. If she is below 85% at this stage, I doubt she has much chance and I would not put her through the stress of sitting the tests. It could also be that the tutor is a complete charlatan.

I would ask to see the completed papers if you have not done so already. Are there other tests or just verbal reasoning?

Please remember, there are good tutors and there are bad ones. Unfortunately, I had a bad one stringing me along for a very long time. He too would say my ds was doing 'very well'. Fortunately the grammars for us were a back up plan as we really wanted a faith based school. Knowing that it's possible to end up with zero on your list, we tutored for grammars also. One day I decided to listen outside the room and he was asking my ds the questions and telling him the answers. We may well have been snookered if that was our only choice. Defo over 90% at this stage and more towards the top end.

Around now I think not only top nineties but focus should be on speed to b able to finish with the allotted time.

Please don't panic though, as your dd will pick up on it which is no good for anyone.

Sorry - shd have said 'within' the allotted time:)

She got 95% for the mock VR but we have a mock Maths next week which she'll probably get 80-90 in going by the practice papers she's doing. She's going for a music place too as she's doing grade 4 piano and grade 3 double bass so maybe she'll have a chance there.
We aren't too worried as we have a perfectly good local school which she'll be fine at, so we are pretty relaxed about the whole thing.
I would have thought that 99-100 would be incredibly well but maybe I'm being a bit tough ?

Thanks everyone for your feedback btw- it's appreciated.

five - So pleased you're relaxed about it as that would just make it worse. The fact that you have a music option means you're in a different part of the country from where I am. In my part of town, parents are convinced the kids that are offered places are hitting between 99 -100% in the allocated time, so here, that wouldn't be tough, more realistic.

Very best of luck. X

You really do need to get into the 90s because the standardisation process takes you down quite quickly when you drop a few marks.

Regarding tutors, some are good, some are hopeless. Seems to me the good ones develop the underlying cognitive processes involved in these types of tests. Bright children pick this up very quickly so, for competitive schools, you need to be hitting home runs.