Over 20 years experience teaching and tutoring children

11 Plus Mock Exams at Tintagel Tutoring

Tintagel tutoring offer mock exams in the months leading up to the 11 Plus Examination. These mock exams aim to create conditions as close as possible to that of the real Birmingham Authority 11 Plus Exam. The exams will take place under exam conditions and last for 2 hours. It is not essential to sit the mock exams, but we would advise your child sit at least one to obtain experience of a formal test situation before sitting the actual exam itself.  Book your child's mock examination here.

Mock examinations provide an excellent way to practice working in exam conditions and will help your child to overcome exam day nerves. They also assist the tutoring process by providing an accurate picture of your child’s progress in each specific area of the exam while highlighting any strengths and weaknesses. Mock exams are an excellent way of helping children with timing issues on each paper and boosting their self-confidence. 

Following completion of mock exams at Tintagel Tutoring, we will provide parental feedback which is detailed and specific. To book and for more infomation about mock exams please see our dedicated 11 plus mock exams page.  

 11 Plus English at Tintagel Tutoring 

Comprehension

Reading comprehension tests a child’s ability to understand what they have read. The format used in the 11 plus is a short passage, either fiction or non-fiction, followed by a series of questions in multiple-choice format. 

Although most children will have done reading comprehensions at school, the test they will encounter in the 11 plus exam will be very different and they will likely find it more difficult. There are several ways in which this comprehension will be more challenging to children:

· Time - they will have to work within specified timed constraints, making it harder to complete accurately. 

· Multiple choice - the questions are in a multiple-choice format which tests the children’s understanding in a much more precise way than in the sentence-style answers they may be more familiar with from school. 

· Text encountered - the texts used in the comprehension test in the exam may come from classic texts such as Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens. The style of writing and the language used may be unfamiliar to children who have not been exposed to such literature before. It is advisable that your child has read many books from variety genres and eras.

Reading

Within both the English and verbal reasoning paper, some questions will be aimed at testing the child’s range of vocabulary and spelling. A key component in widening your child’s vocabulary, while helping their spelling, is through reading a rich and varied range of literature. This should have begun long before consideration of taking the 11 plus exam, although it is never too late to start. Little and often is the key with the emphasis on reading for enjoyment. Encourage your child to read for at least twenty minutes every day. New and unfamiliar words should be copied down in a vocabulary book along with their meanings. 

11 Plus Numerical reasoning at Tintagel Tutoring

Numerical reasoning is the ability to reason worded problems and then to apply simple numerical concepts to solve the problem. The questions test the child’s ability to use their logical skills to interpret and analyse information given to them. The level of mathematics involved is usually fairly straightforward, the challenge lies in understanding what the question is asking and which mathematical methods are required to successfully solve the problem. The questions are often sequential and the following answers require the preceding question to have been answered correctly.

Numerical Reasoning Tuition

The best way to prepare for the numerical reasoning test is to practise a variety of different problem-solving questions and scenarios. The child will then become familiar in sorting through information, discovering the relevant parts, as well as recognising which processes of mathematics is required in order to accurately answer the problem. As the test is completed in a finite amount of time, it is also important to ensure children are using the most efficient methods for their calculations. 

Numerical Reasoning Test

It is difficult to give a comprehensive list of all the areas that will be tested, but it should be assumed that a child would need to have a secure understanding of the following areas of mathematics:

· Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division word problems

· Decimal word problems including money

· Fraction, decimal and percentage problems including equivalent conversions

· Interpreting graphs such as bar charts, pie charts, travel graphs

· Probability expressed as fractions

· Ratio and direct proportion

· Converting between units of measurement

· Scale problems

· Area, perimeter and volume

· Averages (mean, median, mode and range)

· Time problems and timetables

11 Plus Verbal reasoning at Tintagel Tutoring

Verbal reasoning tests a child’s ability to manipulate words, find hidden words or create new ones. It aims at evaluating the child’s ability to think constructively, rather than at simple fluency or vocabulary recognition.

The skills needed to perform well in verbal reasoning tests can be broken down into three separate categories:

Comprehension

Your ability to understand and analyse written information and use it to make correct conclusions based solely on the information you find in the text.

Grammar

Your ability to spell correctly and know how to use correct tenses. The  11 plus exam usually requires you to add words to a passage so that it makes sense and is grammatically correct.

Vocabulary

This tests your knowledge of the English Language by the use of synonyms and antonyms. 

Increasingly, cloze tests are being used in the  11 plus entrance exams. Cloze tests are passages where some words are partially or wholly removed. The child is asked to complete the passage so that it makes sense and is grammatically correct. Where the words are partially removed, the child must not only have a wide vocabulary to think of the word, but also have the ability to spell it correctly. Where the word is wholly removed, the children need to choose the most suitable word from those given to them, testing their vocabulary again as well as ability to ensure the sentence makes sense grammatically. Reading a variety of literature, short comprehensions and similar practice exercises will help to strengthen vocabulary and improve understanding of the meaning of words in context.

11 Plus Non-Verbal reasoning at Tintagel Tutoring

Non-verbal reasoning questions appear in diagrammatic and pictorial form. Such tests involve the ability to understand and analyse visual information and solve problems using visual reasoning. For example: identifying relationships, similarities and differences between shapes and patterns and recognising visual sequences and relationships between objects. It enables children to analyse and solve complex problems without being limited by language skills. As these tests don't require reading, they can assess a child’s ability to spot patterns and identify errors.

Non-verbal Reasoning Requirements

Non-verbal reasoning requires good spatial awareness and it is a skill that some children might have naturally. For those who do not, it is still possible to learn by repeated practice, thus acquiring the technique required to solve such questions. Children will learn how to isolate each part of the pattern in turn to eliminate the options one-by-one. In order to become successful in non-verbal reasoning tests, children will need to understand maths concepts such as rotation and reflective symmetry and also to apply logical skills to see how objects relate to one another. Fortunately, it is a skill which can be greatly improved through repeated practice.