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How to stop your child making silly mistakes in the Transfer Tests

The number one question parents ask us at this time of year is, “How can I help my child to stop making silly mistakes in the SEAG Transfer Tests?”

In this article, we explore some of the common causes of children making silly mistakes in the Transfer Tests and how you can help eliminate these.

Here are Martin’s top tips to eliminate silly mistakes in the SEAG Transfer Tests. With 15 years of experience, teaching hundreds of children for the tests (formerly the AQE and GL PPTC tests) he knows how to avoid throwing away marks needlessly.

Tips to help eliminate silly mistakes in the Transfer Tests

  1. Treat each question the same. Don’t think a question is “easy” or “hard”. Be consistent in how you approach every question.
  2. Read the whole question and try to understand what the question is asking. This sounds obvious but many students read part of a question and assume what it is asking because they have “seen a question like that before.” Never assume! Always read it!
  3. Revision! Make sure you fully understand the topic. If the student is not 100% about a topic they must stop and go over any areas of weakness. Keep a notebook and jot down what needs to be revised when you are marking the tests. For a true reflection of how they would do in an actual exam, make sure they have revised all the topics in a test before they sit it.
  4. Have a method. Students need to work methodically through each question – Break down a question so it becomes easier to understand. Highlight key information or words in a question, passage, or poem by underlining or circling.
  5. Check your work – Return to a question and double-check working out to confirm you have answered the question correctly.

Strategies for the SEAG Transfer tests

  • The SEAG test is written by GL Assessment – The multiple choice style questions work as a ‘safety net’ to students who commonly make errors, especially dyslexic students. For example, if a student has made a silly mistake in their working out and their answer is not one of the choices – this makes the student go back over the question and check their working out immediately so they come up with the correct answer. The test also contains free-form written answers, so pupils need to be careful to write down their answers carefully, the correct box on the answer sheet.
  • Some questions can be wordy. The student needs to underline keywords in a question. When checking your work you should ask yourself, “Is this answer reasonable?” Another strategy would be to estimate quickly to confirm if the answer is ‘reasonable’. Be aware of common mistakes e.g. mixing up perimeter and area or adding instead of subtracting.

Top tip!

When you are marking your child’s practice papers, give them their actual mark and then beside it write the mark they would have got if they didn’t make any silly mistakes. This can often motivate them to try and eliminate these errors themselves. They can aim to have the number of silly errors go down for each test they sit.

For more information on our Transfer Test tuition services please visit our tuition website.

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