This
blog will take the load off the Mathemafix message board by hosting
important information about 2023 Selective and Scholarship test
preparation.
15 May
---
Students have managed to win several scholarships. While the number is moderate this year, the scholarship process has been really difficult. Some schools interviewed students twice!
From what parents informed me, we have achieved (for 2024 entry)
1 x Santa Sabina (100%)
1 x MLC School (100%)
1 x Shore School (100%)
1 x The Scots College (100%)
1 x Cranbrook (partial scholarship)
1 x Georges River Grammar (partial scholarship)
1 x Scots All Saints College (partial scholarship)
There may be some more waiting for interview results and some parents have not told me.
04 May
---
Some students gave feedback on the selective test and generally, they feel it
is easier than Mathemafix trials. They also feel that the TS on
Mathemafix prepared them very well for the TS they saw in the 2023
selective test.
- In the English paper they did not give sentence
cloze. They get students to pick the title/heading for paragraphs of text.
This requires the skill to find the main idea. It's not hard. It is quite
similar to 2022 when they as about summaries.
- In Thinking Skills, they still only use 3 question types for the verbal reasoning questions. So, nothing has really changed.
-
The writing is about creating a character. So, it's just
characterisation. However, there is a bit of email writing and it is
like a persuasive task alongside a characterisation task.
24 Apr
---
We
now are only 1 week before the 2023 selective test date. The delay of 6
weeks does not seem to help students. Most students just slow down
their preparation instead of taking advantage of the delay to get more
work done. However, this delay helps our top students to relax after
they had a big private school scholarship campaign where they gained a number of interviews and scholarship awards. So, they cruise to
the selective test in a very relaxed manner.
Here is the picture of selective trials
Students only have one more week to finish off their preparation and then relax for a couple of days to be fresh on the date of the test.
Last-minute preparation could include the following things
- Improve the exam techniques where hard questions must be skipped to save time and come back to do them later. There is a guide about this on page QUICK LINKS.
- Make sure at least 4 trial sets are completed.
- Do all the Cambridge Selective samples including the last 2 past selective test papers.
- Review and close all failed questions
There are a few things to consider.
English
They introduced a new question type in the 2022 selective test where students deal with a summary of a paragraph. They did not give the question-type sentence cloze as in the 2021 selective test. This type of question is covered by all the reading skills series on Mathemafix so it's not so important. Students should train in the sentence cloze module and do the test series called English Summaries to be sure.
Mathematics
It looks like the maths they give in the past papers is pretty standard and close to Singapore maths style. They also add a small number of competitive maths questions of Maths Olympiad and AMC style. So, students who do enough maths tests on Mathemafix are expected to do very well. There is no concern here. However, there are weak maths students and they should at least try to do well on the OC level maths to hope for a score around 70%.
Thinking skills
Thinking skills trials on Mathemafix are harder than the real thinking skills papers. There are plenty of TS training and booster tests. Many students find the selective TS level too hard. Students who are weak in this should at least complete all the available TS materials at the OC level.
Writing
For the last 2 years, Cambridge gave really easy writing tests. They gave a fictional recount style instead of the hard narrative style. This means the marking will be based more on grammar, spelling, choice of words and realistic ideas. It will be less on theme and techniques. However, there is nothing to stop students from writing in the narrative style. I believe that using the narrative style might give students more marks. An easy way is to introduce a conflict and complications into the work and also add a theme. This will really help to gain better marks.
- Add a conflict at the beginning of the text. For example, in the 2021 Cambridge writing prompt about the container washing up on a beach, one can mention a group of environmentalists demonstrating at the scene. In the 2022 Cambridge writing prompt about a diary entry on a future date, one can add a conflict between the house robot and the narrator.
- Once a conflict is added in, one can proceed to create a few complications and later add a resolution at the end.
- To add a theme to a work, the proper way is to repeat the thematic idea several times alongside the actions and events. However, a cheap and dirty way is to get one character to say it out loud in a dialogue. For example, if the theme is heroism, one can get a character to say it out loud, "Bob is an average hero that I look up to," said Fred. It's a dirty and cheap way but having a theme is better than nothing. There is a guide about setting up a theme on page QUICK LINKS.
On the day of the test
Here are some useful tips about the day of the test to make sure things go smoothly.
- Relax your child for the day. Stop working 2 days before the test.
- Plan to take your child to a celebration lunch after the test and let your child take the rest of the day off to have fun. Make this known to your child well in advance.
- On the day of the test, a decent breakfast is important to top up the level of energy. A cup of tea will add a little caffeine to help your child stay alert. A jacket may be needed to keep your child warm on a cold day. And some high-energy snack is good to top up during the break.
- Arrive 20 minutes early to find parking and also find the way to the school's toilets. Your child needs to know the way so s/he can rush out of the hall at the break to get there and not have to wait in a long queue (and get back late for the next test).
12 Sep
---
For entry to Year 7 in 2024, applications are expected to open on 18 October and close on 16 November 2022. The Selective High School Placement Test will be held on 4 May 2023. The test will be paper-based.
Primary schools will not be required to provide school assessment scores for applicants for entry in 2024.
https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-7
2 Sep
---
ICAS results are out and also NAPLAN results are out. I find a result from a fairly weak student who has decent vocab and
spelling. I worked with him for over 4 hours on NAPLAN and I was very
surprised with the writing and grammar results. They always say that
NAPLAN writing is hard and I have seen lots of results over the years
and it's very hard to get to the top arrow.
Attached here is the
NAPLAN writing prep he did with me just before the NAPLAN test. We only
worked on writing a few times before he did this narrative. I did not
think the narrative was good. But it is certainly not too bad. The
difference I see in it from many other students' works is a reasonable
attempt to flow the ideas and making sure there is a proper start, story
development and ending.
The message I get out of this is that the basics of writing skills are so important. That's what markers look for. Interesting ideas are not so important. It's so important to flow the ideas so that the story makes sense. It's important to selective teh rigth words that help the expressions be accurate. It's vital to get the structure correct.
2 Sep
---
By now students should have completed all year 6 maths online and start to focus on problem solving. They hopefully already start English comprehension year 6. The top performers are well into year 7 English comprehension.
Parents should consider joining the kids to the Google Advancaed Maths Class and the Google Online Writing Class.
https://mathemafix.com/workshops.html
The video lessons will help students to get to the next level.
21 Aug
---
Parents should read the blog for the 2022 selective prep to get some idea about how students performed and what experience we gained from it.
https://mathemafix-users.blogspot.com/2020/11/2022-selective-and-scholarship-test.html
