Unfamiliar Eleven Plus Exercises

As children approache the eleven plus parents will trying to reinforce familiar concepts as well as attempting to continue to build confidence. Very few parents will be trying to add new topics in the last few days before the examination. The key word, no doubt, will be `consolidation'.

What happens if your child does meet something unfamiliar in the examination? Suppose he or she was faced with a question like this:

ARTAPPELSOP

Metode
1 koppie gesnyde artapples
4 koopies warn melk
2 eetlepels botter
1 teelepel sout
1 eatleepel meel
`n paar stukkies uie
peper en sout
Kook alles saam.

This is about:

a. Football rules and regulations
b. Making jewelery
c. cooking potato soup
d. instruction on building a rocket

The format is familiar. Children will know what to do. Most will not have a clue on how to answer the question.

Explain, once again, the need to eliminate answers which can not be correct. There is no mention of a ball so Football rules can be eliminated. Gold and silver are not there - so jewelery must go. That leaves cooking and build a rocket. The look of the passage is like a recipe - so the answer must be cooking.

You may care then to add elimination to the last minute instructions.