Entrance Exams: the Final Countdown (part two)
The final countdown for Trafford’s entrance exams has begun …
This Saturday, many hundreds of children will sit entrance examinations for Altrincham Girls’ Grammar and Altrincham Boys’ Grammar. Here is some last minute preparation and advice from the team at Better Tuition, Urmston’s leading tutors in maths, English, science and entrance exams.
1. Make sure your child knows that there will be several hundred other children at the exam venue on the day. Ask them to visualise this; compare it to a non-threatening event like visiting Alton Towers when it’s busy. It’s important that they understand there will be lots of other children there, as they can be quite shocked and panic when they see the assembled hordes on the day. Up to 2,ooo people (including parents/ carers) descend on the grammar schools on examination day, so this is an important tip.
2. Be sure that you are aware of the requirements of the particular entrance exams your child is taking. For example, if they are sitting Sale Grammar School’s examination, the papers are maths, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning; at Loreto or Ambrose the papers are maths, English and Verbal Reasoning and at Urmston Grammar the papers are maths, English and Non-Verbal Reasoning. You don’t have to memorise all this: just be sure your child knows which papers to expect on the day. UPDATE (January 2014): Altrincham Grammar School for Boys and Altrincham Grammar School for Girls will no longer test NVR; this element of the entrance examinations has been replaced by English.
3. The day before the exam, do 15-20 minutes of each section of the exam (eg. NVR, Maths, VR), then get your child to do some hard physical exercise. The benefits are manifold: exercise is relaxing and oxidises the brain, helping it function more efficiently; physical activity will distract your child from any nerves bubbling up; with luck the activity will tire your child out and s/he can enjoy a good night’s sleep.
4. On the day of the exam, do whatever it takes to get your child to eat some breakfast! The ideal breakfast is porridge with berries or oatcakes with banana, because oats provide slow releasing energy. They should take a snack to the exam also – a drink and a piece of fruit is ideal but if they don’t like fruit, try to compromise. Some children take a while to key their brain in to the exam paper – if your child is one of these, s/he will score poorly in the first ten or so questions of practice tests, then improve. IF this is the case, you might want to do NO MORE than 5 minutes practice on each paper on the morning of the test. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do any practice on the morning of the exam.
5. If the school is not too far away, you should consider walking there, to clear away the cobwebs and take away the stress of parking along with 1,000 other stressed out parents. If you are driving, try to go with two adults so that one can drop off and the other can accompany the child. The last thing you want is to have to drop your child off alone at a strange school, so leave enough time to park a few streets away.
6. After the exam, a reward is a must, whether it be an afternoon in the park, a trip to the cinema or a freshly baked cake. Give your child something to look forward to during the exam and this may boost their performance ever so slightly.
Once the exam is out the way, put it out of your mind and relax – at least until the next one …
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