11+ GL or CEM?

[SamPoodle123]

I have seen GL and CEM mentioned before and also on some 11+ books. My dd did not really use these for her 11+ and just used Atom learning. I am wondering for my ds, if we wanted to use a book how would we know GL or CEM? It does not say on the school websites. He is not applying to any grammer schools, as we are too far. Not sure if the private schools would be GL or CEM?

Depends on school, most popular private use online pretest then follow by paper exams.

Online pretest can be ISEB or CEM select.
Paper exams normally the most selective private school will write its own open format papers, former example paper can be download from the school website.

Some fairly selective school use multiple choice papers, for example WHS use GL.

In most cases the exam format will be outlined in the School website in details, you just need to navigate through your target schools. For example, Highgate in their website has very details on exam format last year: NVR provided by GL, then follow by its own maths and English papers with exam for download.

Note that even school use the same example providers, e.g GL or CEM, the exam difficulty can be very different by schools, as the school can prescribe the level they want from the exam providers - via difficulty of the questions or the time intensity of the exam.

DD took GL NVR from Highgate last year, her comment was the questions is easier than the other Grammar school GL NVR exam. Though Highgate tests more questions, she got 40% more time per question to finish the paper compared to the grammar school exam she did, so no time pressure at all.

One more thing to note that the online atom CEM or GL exam style is not exactly then same resemblance of the actual CEM GL paper exams, especially for VR and NVR.

If you contact atom they will tell you which type of exam for that specific school.

@PreplexJ Many thanks. It all sounds so complicated! For ds we are looking at St Pauls, Kings, Latymer and Emanuel. I know St Pauls has the initial ISEB and then its own test. The rest of the schools have their own test with example papers online. But I was not sure if they followed GL or CEM.

@starpatch Thanks, will try asking Atom!

CEM is no longer producing 11plus papers with effect from september 2023.

"The rest of the schools have their own test with example papers online. But I was not sure if they followed GL or CEM"

Is it open format or multiple choice? Open format then it is school own paper. Multiple choice likely to be GL, but really doesn't matter for comprehension or maths. Only difference will be just VR or NVR styles

https://atomlearning.com/blog/cem-11-plus-guide
Yes no papers (grammar mostly) just online.

@PreplexJ Thanks. Will take a look again. I think most are written. I don't think any of the schools put any examples of verbal reasoning.

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon Thanks, that would make things a lot easier! One less to worry about covering lol.

@SamPoodle123 I think most of the School is open about the format, for example one of the School you mentioned about Emanuel website says about VR

"There are no specimen verbal reasoning papers available. We have devised our own verbal reasoning exams based on GL assessment papers, which are available to purchase online or in many bookshops."

@PreplexJ thanks, I will go back to the websites and check.