CAT4 test - how to prepare

[ItsJustMe88]

I'm hoping for some advice!

DC (13, currently in year 9) is due to sit a CAT4 test to transfer to another (selective) school for year 10.

She is bright, but has slow processing speed, possibly an unusual type of dyslexia. This particularly affects her reading speed and her maths. At school she normally get 25% extra time in assessments.

The new school asks for overall 120 in CAT, which should be attainable (she got well over 120 overall in Year 5, though in quite relaxed circumstances). I think however they also want 120 specifically in the numerical section, which is more of a problem. For example, in year 5 she scored something like 125 for non-verbal, 131 for verbal, but only 113 in numerical. Numerical reasoning takes a lot of time for her. (She's perfectly good at Maths though, perhaps not top 5% but comfortably in set 1 in her current non-selective school, scoring over 80% for the end of year Year 8 assessment).

My question is, how do we prepare for CAT testing, given that we are going to have to seriously work on speed? How much time will we need to prepare (in total and per week), how many practice papers, where do we get them from? If anyone has done this before, please let me know how you tackled it!

Hi, you can get practice tests on atomlearning.com but other than I can’t be of much use, sorry!

I think the whole point on CAT tests (or any other baseline tests) is that you can’t / shouldn’t prepare for them.

If she’s done them before she is at least familiar with the content and how it works. It sounds like she is a bright girl and should get over 120 overall. If the school is insisting in over 120 in each section and you’re worried she won’t get that, is it the right school to be considering? It might be worth contacting them and raising your concerns about your dd’s difficulties with the maths section in particular.

Check out the following link for some info on CAT4 and dyslexic students:

https://schoolentranceexam.com/cat4/#aioseo-my-child-is-dyslexic-is-cat4-testing-still-possible

You can't really prepare for them beyond familiarising a child with the type of questions - that is the point of them.

On NVR, pattern recognition should be more important than being good at maths.

Dyslexics can also score extremely high on CATs

The verbal reasoning will be the most difficult of course - it wouldn't be fair to score them equally as a student without dyslexia.

I don't think allowance is made.

DD is severely dyslexic and has never had any allowances on CAT but does on all other exams.

She scores high on VR as again a lot is pattern recognition, but not as high as the others. If you have spiky results and an EP report that should help.