Eleven Plus Cheating

I met a child once who was obliged to do a full eleven plus paper every day. The parents must have bought every book and downloaded every paper. The child was expected to achieve over 85% on every exercise because the parents had been told that that was the pass mark in the actual examination. The problem is that there is often a great disparity between the standard of the various eleven plus exercises. Some eleven plus papers are designed for a child at the start of an eleven plus course and others set for when a child is likely to have completed most of the preparation. Some papers are set for particular regions.

A child under considerable pressure at home or in lessons may occasionally feel inclined to want to take a short cut. As the eleven plus examinations approach a parent may praise a really good mark – and then expect their child to achieve that level in all succeeding papers. Poor child!

Some children, however, think that it is cheating to look at answers while they are working through selection papers. The children will happily allow their parents to look at the answers in the middle of the same exercise.

There are no `golden rules’ about when children will cheat - but children may feel the need to cheat if:

The task is too difficult.

The parents or the eleven plus teacher set the standard too high.

Parents press for high marks rather than understanding.

The child feels under pressure to do well academically.

If the pressure is taken off it is likely that attempts to cheat will immediately die away.

Cheating itself does not play appear to play a part in the actual eleven plus examination. The children will be too well supervised – and it is unlikely that any child will be offered an opportunity.