Dame Alice Owens - Mock?

[Countrylifemama]

Hi

We are preparing for DAO entrance exmas this year - child is doing tutoring. But I wanted to know what the mock exams they should register for before the exam?

Are there any that provide similar types of paper where they'll be able to do these assesments so we can get a view of strengths and weeakness

We are already doing past papers etc but ENglish is more challenging as its subjective. DAO write thier own papers

Any advice would be helpful thanks

I

Bumping to get advice please, first child going through 11+ so am unsure. Any help or feedback is highly appreciated :)

Thanks

Desperate mum x

Google exam papers plus and dame alice owen and the right link will come through (about 5 practice tests)

Not my area of London so no personal knowledge but this may help!

Thanks for taking the time out to reply yes I’ve purchased all of those but was hoping to get him to sit real exams that are similar to DAO (like ones you get in halls) from providers but wasn’t sure which ones are recommended

Thanks once again x

This website is an invaluable source of information and advice. Eleven plus exams
You can use the forum for Hertfordshire North or the subject specific pages to search for mocks etc

I should have also added that the verbal reasoning test is extremely important. You have to get into the top 325 to be invited back to sit the English and maths papers.
For VR get hold of as many GL practice papers. Bond and also Susan Daughtry is good for VR too.
For maths, the Schofield and Sims mental arithmetic books are good and do as many practice papers as possible - even if they come from other schools eg Latymer etc etc.
For English, read as much as possible esp the classics. Not the whole book but sections/chapters and discuss key ideas, themes and characters.

i did a quick search and found this. No idea if they’ll be any good

DAO papers are very hard so maybe some GCSE papers?

We didn’t take the DAO exam (OOC), but some of my acquaintances did, and quite a few passed. You need to prepare for the first round of VR initially.

The second round consists of written papers for maths and English, which are nowhere near the difficulty level of GCSE papers.

However, practicing written papers from various independent schools would be beneficial. Lots of information on elevenplusexams forum and I think one of the user there is a dedicated DAO tutor for many years!

Hello, my DD is sitting DAO exams now in September 2024 too.

The school itself sells a package of preparation material, have you seen it?

Good luck to us!!

Which other schools are you applying? X

Thanks @Minerva81 yes have got those! We are sitting Latymer too and likely Habs, St Albans!

How about yourself? Indeed good luck - only few more months and then we are done! Its been incredibly stressful at times!

In September we are sitting for: DAO, HBS and doing the SW Consortium exams tii (although the only one I like from the consortium is Parmiters).

Then for Indies we are definitely sitting the exams for: Habs, Queenswood, NLCS, St. Columbas in St. Albans and MAYBE: STAHS, Aldenham and St. Margarets too.

So stressed, feeling like we left prep for too late. Was (naively) hoping that her music would give her an "edge" but not holding my breath on that either, did not realize how competitive this 11+ is.

Good luck to us!!! <3

How did you do on DAO test?

In your opinions, is it worth buying Dame Alice tests (£30 for Verbal reasoning and then English and maths separately)?

Or is it enough to prep with other tests available?

Thanks

Hello :) DD Did the second stage test few weeks ago and we are now anxiously waiting for her final results/ranking.

Yes, we stuck to GL books for VR and for English and maths we practiced on DAO papers from their website + Queenswood papers from their own website as I found the paper style very similar. :)

Good luck to you!!

It's worth buying the papers but for use in the weeks just before the exam. The English and vr papers are very realistic. The maths paper was harder in the actual exam.

@Countrylifemama and @Minerva81 Hi, did your kids get into DAO? Was after some tips and advice please?

Mine did. Let me know if you have specific questions ?

Hello yes he did, was there something in specific you wanted to know xx

Did you mean you used Queenswood papers for DAO?

@Countrylifemama @purplejeanie my main question is if they're happy there and how much homework they get?

Hi @SFV he hasn’t started yet, will do in Sept. But they give 2-3 pieces, around 20mins each every day.

He’s enjoyed the transition day and went to the Y7 transition camp where he got a chance to make some friends.

Hope this helps x

Ah, that's great to hear. We have to pass 1st round first. Did you focus on each round separately, or were you prepared for both from the first stage? If that makes sense. We're sitting multiple schools, all slightly different in format and difficulty - so for now we've been doing the general maths and English. Did your son find the real exams harder than the practice papers?

We prepared for both from the outset because there’s not enough time between round 1 and 2 to prepare from scratch for the English and maths papers. In the last couple of weeks before round 1, we focussed on VR (but my DD was also doing other tests, so couldn’t exclusively do VR). The VR paper was the same level as GL practice papers. The English paper was the same level as the DAO practice papers; speed is of the essence as there is a lot to read and write in the time available. She found the maths paper significantly harder than the DAO practice papers.

We did pretty similar to @purplejeanie, focused on VR to the run up but was preparing for all subjects early on. We did GL format VR papers from them but also papers from Athey, Learning Together, Susan Daughtrey in the run up to VR test. DS sat multiple exams across the period, DAO VR was first of them.

English was same as DAO practice papers we also did NLCS/St Albans/Latymer papers as practice aside from the DAO which were close to DAO style

Maths my DS found the hardest too - the practice papers sold by DAO are no where near the same level as to the paper sat. He did many other Grammar school maths papers as practice (Manchester Grammar, Merchant Taylor’s, Habs).

Hi Purplejeanie, if you don't mind me asking, when did your child take the DAO exam? If recent, then can you advice on if CGP VR Papers are any good or Schofield and Sims Rapid Tests would be better? My child has completed the GL VR papers and is scoring around 95% on an average. Which books/papers would be recommend for DAO VR? For Maths, what I gather from the above is that Maths DAO papers do not reflect the actual exams. Which papers would you recommend? Are First Past The Post worded problems book close to the DAO maths paper? How about English? Is the Creative writing usually 'continue the same story' format?
Any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks

@Minerva81 My child will be be taking the exam this Sept. For VR round, apart from GL papers would you recommend any other books or papers? What should be the VR score for GL roughly? What about the books and papers for Maths n Eng?