11 plus English

Tested by

Almost every 11+ test; GL and Quest areas choose whether to include it

Content

Reading comprehension; vocabulary; spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG); sometimes a piece of writing

Writing

Part of the CSSE paper; a creative task in FSCE tests; in Kent, an unmarked task kept in case of review

Biggest help

Reading widely, every day, and talking about new words

The parts of 11+ English

Comprehension

A passage of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, followed by questions. Passages are often older or more demanding than children read for fun, such as classic novels or nineteenth-century writing. The questions ask:

• Retrieval: what the passage says. The answer is in the text.
• Inference: what it suggests, such as how a character feels and how you know.
• Vocabulary in context: what a word or phrase means as it is used here.
• Writer's choices: why the writer used a word, image or structure, and its effect.

Vocabulary

Synonyms, antonyms, choosing the word that fits a sentence, and words with more than one meaning. Vocabulary also underpins comprehension and verbal reasoning, so it is worth more than any single topic.

Spelling, punctuation and grammar

Often set as a passage with a mistake on some lines: the child finds the wrong part, or chooses “no mistake”. Other formats ask for the missing word in a sentence (a cloze), or the sentence that is punctuated correctly.

Writing

Some tests ask for a story, description or piece of persuasive writing in response to a prompt, usually with 20 to 40 minutes to plan and write. It is marked for ideas and structure as well as vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Key Stage 2 English: what is taught

The national curriculum sets English out in two bands, Years 3 and 4 then Years 5 and 6, with a year-by-year list of grammar and punctuation. Here is what 11+ English draws on.

Reading

• Years 3 and 4: reading a range of fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction; using a dictionary; checking that the text makes sense; drawing inferences about characters' feelings, thoughts and motives; predicting what might happen; finding the main idea of several paragraphs.
• Years 5 and 6: reading modern and older fiction, myths and legends, and books from other cultures; summarising; telling fact from opinion; explaining how language, structure and presentation affect meaning; understanding figurative language; justifying views with evidence from the text.

Grammar and punctuation, year by year

• Year 3: conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions for time and cause; a or an; word families; the present perfect (“he has gone”); paragraphs; inverted commas for speech.
• Year 4: expanded noun phrases; fronted adverbials and the comma after them; plural and possessive -s (the girl's, the girls'); Standard English (“we were”, not “we was”); nouns and pronouns used to avoid repetition; full punctuation of speech.
• Year 5: relative clauses (who, which, where, when, whose, that); modal verbs and adverbs showing how likely something is; brackets, dashes and commas for parenthesis; commas to make meaning clear; verb suffixes such as -ate, -ise, -ify; prefixes such as dis-, de-, mis-, over- and re-.
• Year 6: the passive voice; the subjunctive (“if I were”); formal and informal language; synonyms and antonyms; semicolons, colons and dashes between clauses; colons and semicolons in lists; bullet points; hyphens to avoid ambiguity.

Spelling

• Years 3 and 4: prefixes and suffixes, homophones (such as “accept” and “except”), and a statutory list of about 100 words, from “accident” to “women”.
• Years 5 and 6: endings such as -cious, -tious, -cial, -ant and -ent; silent letters; “i before e except after c”; and a second list of about 100 harder words, from “accommodate” to “yacht”.

The statutory word lists are a useful 11+ spelling checklist, and most children can learn the Years 5 and 6 list before the test.

Writing

Through Key Stage 2 children learn to plan, draft and edit; to organise writing in paragraphs; to choose vocabulary and grammar for the reader and purpose; and in Years 5 and 6 to vary sentences, build atmosphere and move between formal and informal writing.

How each test sets its English

• GL Assessment: comprehension plus spelling, punctuation and grammar, mostly multiple choice. Kent adds a writing task that is not marked but can be looked at if a decision is reviewed.
• Quest: comprehension and language questions, multiple choice, where the area includes English.
• CSSE: a comprehension with written answers, then a continuous piece of writing, marked for content and accuracy.
• SEAG: 28 English questions in each paper, covering comprehension, spelling, punctuation and grammar.
• FSCE: reading, vocabulary and the Year 3 to 5 grammar and punctuation listed above, in multiple-choice and short written answers, plus a handwritten creative task.
• ISEB Pre-Test: comprehension plus spelling, punctuation and grammar, on screen; no writing.
• CEM: comprehension, cloze passages, shuffled sentences and a lot of vocabulary.

How to prepare for 11+ English

• Read every day, including some older and non-fiction books. Ask what your child thinks a character is feeling and why.
• Keep a list of new words, and use them in conversation.
• In comprehension, find the evidence in the passage before choosing or writing an answer.
• Learn the grammar terms for Years 3 to 5, as questions use them.
• If your test includes writing, practise planning for five minutes, writing to time and leaving a few minutes to check.

The other 11+ subjects

• MathsKey Stage 2 maths, in harder, multi-step problems.
• EnglishComprehension, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, grammar and sometimes writing.
• Verbal reasoningWord, letter and number puzzles. Not taught in school.
• Non-verbal reasoningShape and pattern puzzles. Not taught in school.

Which subjects each test includes