Could you pass the 11-plus? The test once given to 11 year olds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7773974.stm

by ColinWright • 15 years ago

19 11 15 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

queensnake• 15 years ago

They don't give you statistics or anything. 9/15 for the record - I suck.

samlittlewood4• 15 years ago

"Once given to 11 year olds"?

I'm starting to prepare my son to take it this time next year. Some observations so far:

- It exercises some core problems solving skills.

- It is a good arena for learning how exams work, particularly the time keeping, without getting mixed up with learning a large body of knowledge.

- Having a performance metric would appear to affect the whole education system (for the better).

- By removing those pupils who (at this point in time) do well on the 11+ into seperate schools, it allows the secondary schools and their teachers to concentrate on the next stratum of kids who are no longer in the shade.

GeneTraylor• 15 years ago

What if the child has a learning disability? What happens then?

samlittlewood4• 15 years ago

Disabled pupils can have 'reasonable adjustments' to the administration of the test, given supporting evidence. Eg, for learning disabilities - extra time or breaks.

For the gory detail:

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/assets/content/bcc/docs/schools/ad...

dfxm12• 15 years ago

What if the child isn't a native English speaker?

What if teachers of younger students only teach to this test and ignore other important topics?

ColinWright• 15 years ago

I thought this would be of interest to the HN crowd, but clearly I was wrong - now ranked 449th and falling, despite upvotes. Never mind.

For reference I got 15/15 in under five minutes, but I've seen all these sorts of things before. What's clear is how important practice is for this type of test. Some questions require a trick, and if you haven't seen it you're in real trouble. If you have seen it then the question becomes a reasonable test of reasoning.

In this sense, perhaps, it's something like the trick interview questions people complain about. Perhaps we should assume people have now seen all the trick questions, and start to look at how they then reason beyond them.

And anyone who hasn't seen all the questions before clearly just hasn't done their homework.

samlittlewood4• 15 years ago

Well, I thought it was interesting - but it is on my mind at the moment.

Practice - lots of it. It is worth noting that the schools do not do any coaching for this - it is up to the parents to do it, or employ someone else.

ktf• 15 years ago

I wish I could go back in time and give my 11-year-old self a book of puzzles like this. I loved these kinds of things when I was a kid.

Meanwhile, I'm proud to say that I got 15/15 at age 27 -- but I'm less proud to say that I had about 9 seconds to spare :)

2muchcoffeeman• 15 years ago

How embarrassing. 14/15. Blazed through the first 14 questions on my iPhone whilst in bed and the last one stumped me and I ran out of time.

Also did not know gilt is a word.

Could you pass the 11-plus? The test once given to 11 year olds

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