
Could you pass the 11-plus? The test once given to 11 year olds - ColinWright
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7773974.stm
======
ColinWright
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.

~~~
samlittlewood
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.

------
samlittlewood
"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
What if the child has a learning disability? What happens then?

~~~
dfxm12
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?

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

They will need to cram vocab. - as are their English speaking peers.

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

The teachers explicitly don't teach to this test, and would be sanctioned if
they did such that all the other areas of the syllabus were slipping. It is up
to the parents to arrange preparation one way or another.

Having said that, the school work does overlap - they start to have time
limits on tests, and as always there is a strong emphasis on reading,
comprehension and vocabulary. However, the particular mechanics and mindset of
the 11+ are not covered.

------
2muchcoffeeman
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.

------
ktf
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 :)

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

