ISEB Atom dilemma - don’t understand

[Kitkat189]

My son is not doing well at all on Atom. I’d say his average is around 100, sometimes as low as in the 80s. He’s been on atom for about a month now so it’s not just a dip. I tried a different platform with him but it’s the same.

The issue is that he is a good student, so this isn’t making sense to me. A few additional data points: his school suggested we apply for Westminster and SPG (they frequently send boys to these schools so should know what it takes to have a fair chance), and his cat score was 137 last year. He is not the top of his year but I would expect him to be very solidly above average and to have a chance if not at the most competitive day schools, at least a good boarding school.

For the life of him he can’t do well in any of the ISEBs on Atom or Pretest plus. In fact he is doing horribly, since a month, so it’s not just an anomaly.

I don’t know what to make of this. Clearly the 11+ is unlikely to go well and with just weeks left there is not much we can do.

Has anyone been in a similar situation, with a child who does well in school & cats but just can’t do well in exams? I’m so confused, we weren’t ready for this and are now scrambling to find a different set of schools which will take a late application

I completely agree with you. It is too hard for year 5. I don’t know if test providers are always honest/accurate about what they test though - The Bucks 11+ for example claims to only cover to end of y5, but then includes algebra and ratio most years and those are y6 specific objectives.

I have no idea what atom’s game is! As a teacher I found it very annoying as it appears a very good system, but I had loads of questions from anxious parents like the ones on this thread panicking that their children were way below what we were reporting. After a year of using it, it became apparent to me that it wasn’t very accurate with SAS.

Now that results are in I thought I’d update to say that my son ended up getting round 2 /interview offers from all the schools we applied to - no day schools, all boarding. Have also applied to state schools. Atom never changed for him, it basically showed him as being average at best. We’d complete some of the ISEB modules together, getting a near 100% score, but his sas score would still be on the lower side meaning the algorithm must have given him easier questions. It’s all a mystery to me.

century was no better, we had tech issues where they’d take payment but we wouldn’t have access to my son’s profile and this never resolved despite several emails to their support. They refunded us in the end as they were unable to sort it out. Shambles

in conclusion I detest these computer based adaptive tests or at least the prep for them, with a passion. Glad it’s behind us

I have to say I agree with you. I am not a fan of computer based tests, especially when children are given different texts/questions. I don’t believe the algorithms are sophisticated enough.

My ds was the only one out of 10+ kids at his school taking the ISEB to encounter an error on the very first question of the test!!! No one else had the text or the question. I ask ISEB to check his test data for this and they confirmed the error, which meant there were no correct options to select. I find this incredibly unfair and they tried to say it would not affect his overall score, even though the test is supposed to be “adaptive” and it was the first question! They then later claimed that all the questions are worth the same marks. Even though I sent the wording from their website stating that harder questions are worth more marks and what we have all been told about adaptive tests, accuracy is key early on to unlock the more difficult questions.

I find this incredibly unfair and ISEB seems to BS about their test, saying one thing to me, but stating another on their website. The worst thing of all, is they are getting away with it…..

I do not believe their testing is fair or accurate. DS missed first round of one school that used ISEB, but cleared first round for Tiffin and passed the Latymer test. We are waiting to hear from the rest. In the end I have to believe things happen for a reason and the school he didn’t pass it at round was not meant to be. But due to the test error, I still feel this is very unfair and I’m upset it happened.

Thanks for the update @Kitkat189
Another thing that came up in the real ISEB pre test was that the questions are not numbered. There's a vague progress bar with no percentage of progress through the test. All Atom practices for ISEB had numbered questions. I complained to Atom. They haven't bothered replying.
So I agree that these adaptive tests and the prep for them are a joke. It's a lottery. I just wish ISEB and Atom (and our school) didn't pretend otherwise.

@SamPoodle123 , sorry to hear what happened. I don’t think the system is set up fairly since all kids should have the same questions and progress through more questions. The cutting off and changing tag for some and not others means it is not adaptive in a transparent way and you end up comparing marks on very different test papers.

Yes, I agree. Everyone should have the same questions and have the opportunity to answer questions worth more points....although, now we have no idea if questions are worth same points or if some more then others....because ISEB made two different claims. Wish they could just be transparent and honest. Glad we are done with exams and hoping ISEB will be gone by the time 11+ comes around for my youngest.

Hi thanks for your input, very interesting your experience is , am sorry to come in the @Kitkat189 post however your experience is exactly what am experiencing with my child right now and am totally lost and confused,
child is very academic type and was recommended to apply for top academic school, does score up to 95_99% in paper test , however he is doing poorly (105-112) on atome and is very depressing. Although he is still in year 5 right now but am just wondering if the stat in atom is correct or is my child that needs more help with computer base .
your experience seems comforting if one needs to look at the type of question that are given to the kids .

So happy to read the end result for you , well done for sticking to it and not giving up, I learned a lot from your post and if you don’t mind can message you privately. Please.
am still in this marathon for the next 6months

What schools are you applying to? My son was scoring in the high 130s for maths tests on atom but about 105-25 on English, VR and NVR up until the exam. I can update on his offers at the end of the week, but he managed to get interviews at Kings, St Paul’s, Latymer, Hampton…

@Wlondon14 What happened in the end? What offers did your son get?

From ISEB schools, my son got 2 firm offers and 2 waiting lists. So we were very happy. The schools don't simply select on the ISEB scores but there was a real risk our son would crumble on either or both days of the tests! So we're very happy.

The 50 questions that Atom includes in its ISEB English mock tests has always seemed far too long to me, given the test is only 40 minutes in duration.

The ten-year-old exam candidate wades through questions on three separate 500-word comprehension passages and they're only ~20 questions into the 50?!

Have other Mumsnetters found that their children don't manage to finish Atom's ISEB English mocks in the 40 mins?

Me again. In case anyone is in the middle of 11+ prep and comes across this, I just wanted to update to say that my son got offers from all the schools he applied to including Eton. His atom scores certainly didn’t point in that direction at all so I can only conclude that these make zero sense. Maybe it’s good practice but I wouldn’t worry about the scores at all. Hope this helps

Hello I'd just like to say thanks for this thread as it offers comfort my son is doing better really than what the SAS scores show.

My son is 3 months away from independent school exams and is classed as 'strong' or 'master' on his performance scores on maths, english and so on, but he still regularly turns in 104 -110 (average) on Atom (Quest) tests.

We will be doing many more islands and also weekly Quests mocks from now on in so I do expect him to go up as he hones his technique (and I know Atoms SAS are 8-12 points lower than national tests anyway, as the kids using Atom are generally a more academic cohort than the average) but I find the SAS scores confusing and yes, as he'd love to go to our local independent, worrying.

His tutor says its often simply if they get an early question wrong, the system then won't show them the hardest questions so limits their score potential. So it's all about getting those early questions right.

@Kitkat189 Thank you for updating us!

I hated those adaptive tests. My kids weren’t good at them at all. Hard questions they never struggled with but were prone to sloppy errors in the easier ones. Failed to get into the schools with those tests, got to to the ones with paper tests and offered academic scholarships to some.

OP well done! You must have been very relieved!

I found this thread really interesting.

I've been doing Atom with my DD, and on the English side some of the questions on the Quest tests and the islands are just plain bonkers. There are some that are just wrong (e.g. on comma placement), and comprehension questions which unanswerable (e.g. asking about authorial motivation where none is given in the text) or so ambiguous that it doesn't make any sense to have there be a 'right' answer in a multiple choice.

I'm really hoping that the tests at the schools she is applying for are not this daft.

I've just found this thread as well as we've just picked up Atom for DD2 and I was really stressing about (a) how low she is scoring and (b) how hard some of the questions seem to be!

We used Atom as preparation for DD1 5 years and thought it was really good at the time, so I've been really stressing about DD2's low SAS and whether we shoud not put her through the whole process as with the scores she's getting she is a long way off getting in.

I feel quite a bit calmer now and we'll chip away at it as I do think there is benefit to practising the technique, but we'll try not to stress over the SAS scores and carry on doing some paper practise as well.

Well done @Kitkat189 on your son's results and thank you for coming back and updating.

Apparently a lot of the private prep schools use Atom in class or as secondary school prep, which skews results a lot as they use regularly. So if your child is getting an average SAS for a mock, they are doing as well as average kids at prep schools who will be above average than most kids. I do think these adaptive tests don't work for all kids, too. BUT it is what it is and there's a not a lot that can be done.