Revision Tips

Posted by Shaun Drury on Friday 07th of March 2008 in Education and Revision Help

“There are so many to choose from…which ones should I get?”. This is a question we are asked every week. The answer is, go and look at all that are available. Some are better if your child is not confident in the subject and you just want to introduce them to exam papers, others are much harder or are laid out in a more difficult way – use those as you approach the exams, once you have done some ground work.
The important thing is to introduce the papers gently. Some are terrifying.

Some good papers to look at are (in no particular order):
Bond Assessment Papers, R& S Educational services, Learning Together,
MW Educational, Nfer Nelson, AFN Publishing, Athey Educational, IPS (Internet Primary School).
All are available for our website www.extratuition.com and click on bookshop.

There are many different approaches:
1. Break the papers up into chunks, do a page at a time, mark them, go over any areas of weakness.
2. If the papers look too hard, then one evening go though the questions together, discuss where your child may have difficulties when answering the questions. Don’t do the answers, just talk in general about the topics. Then a few nights later, let them actually do the questions.
3. Buy a mathematics reference book so they can look up how to do particular topics.
4. Encourage your child to do their best by not pushing them to do more practice tests than they are comfortable with, and when they do start them that they are relaxed.
5. You will find that there are time limitations written at the beginning of each paper, this is if you want to work at familiarising yourself with 11plus test conditions. However, you may find it more beneficial to ignore the timing at the beginning so that confidence in doing the papers increases.
6. If, during a practice test, your child gets stuck on a question, let them put a mark in the margin and come back to it later; then it will be easier to work out where they need the most help to become better at tackling the eleven plus exams.

Don’t forget, if you get stuck, bring the questions in to the lessons and we will be happy to help BUT PLEASE, PLEASE bring in the answers too, especially for the nonverbal reasoning as some of those questions are real stinkers!
Good Luck. If we can help in any way please let us know.