common entrance v school admission exams

[itwillbebetter]

Ds2 is just about to sit school admission exams for year 9. We have been trying to download some practice papers but can only find common entrance exams which to be honest have scared him witless.
Can anyone reassure me that school general entrance exams are not as hard as common entrance as he is terrified!

No, I'm not sure they can reassure you, because difficulty of the exam varies as much (if not more) between schools as it does between tiers of CE paper and marks required. And of course it's also likely to be a different number of papers in a different range of subjects.

Also, it may well be competitive entry so you don't just have to meet the score for a conditional offer, you actually have to beat the rest of the field.

Not sure why it's being difficult to find practice papers: googling 'practice 13+ papers' turns up quite a lot.

Though I guess that if he's sitting now it's for an ad hoc place, so at least that removes the element of competition.

I'm assuming you are not at a prep preparing for CE and that you have asked target school for past papers?

You need to check the format of the school exams as they will differ to CE and each other. For example CE English is text based whereas school exams will be language based with unseen comprehension and essay. Ask the school for samples. Many also do online vr and nvr

Try using SATs papers., as well as VR/NVR tests.

He should not worry about not being able to do the CE papers. He has not been preparing for those exams and so will not have covered a lot of the stuff on the syllabus. That is why students who are not at prep schools are not expected to sit these papers.

Have a chat with admissions at your chosen school and get them to send you some past papers.

Definitely ask the admission dept to send you some past papers. My DS is at Winchester, they don't use CE, they write their own entrance exams. Their very helpful admission dept not only sent me past papers for all subhects but also a very informative report that is written every year by the examiner for each subject, it was an eye opener, detailing where boys did well and where they didn't, it gave us an indication of the what examiners were hoping for, and how hard they marked each subject. If he's got a place subject passing the entrance exam most schools will want him to to do well so will only be too happy to help.

No past papers available at DDs old school. Not all schools will give you these but should give you general info on what they test and whether it is based on the national curriculum. It may or may not include VR or NVR. You can but ask. CE is will not be, so do not worry about that. Is there an interview? You may need to chat through what might come up if there is, starting with "why do you want to come to this school?" Good luck.

Thanks for all your help. It's not a super selective school, exams are just in English Maths and VR. School has published sample of VR (which was fairly easy) but no samples of the other 2 papers. I'll ring them up and have a chat.
He has got an interview but he's a chatty boy so not worried about that part at least