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We’re almost ready to welcome in Half Term (yay!), but that also means it’s not long before 11+ independent school exam season firmly kicks in.
We know many of you will have children taking an online Stage 1 test in November or early December; some might even be taking more than one online test, depending on the schools they’re preparing for.
So we’ve put together some key tips and learnings to help families get through this first, crucial round. Share this with your child to help them feel confident and prepared.
Knowing your test type is essential. Some online tests let you go back and change answers (look for ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons), while others lock your answer once you submit it. Adaptive tests or adaptive sections of tests will often say ‘You cannot return to previous questions’ or words to that effect. Look out for this. Understanding which type you’re doing changes everything about your strategy.
Make sure you have your scrap paper ready. Nearly every online test allows this. Use it for calculations, notes and tracking your progress. It is not there for doodling and procrastination, however tempting!
Create a time plan. Write down your start time on your scrap paper and work out when you should be halfway through. Note this down too. This helps you pace yourself without panicking. Yes, you will have a clock in the exam room, but it’s also helpful to have this written down beside you, to keep you on track.
Preparation Over Half Term
Practice makes perfect! Why? Neural pathways strengthen, muscle memory develops, pattern recognition improves and, of course, you learn from your mistakes. Half term is the ideal time to build your online 11+ exam confidence. Use online practice tests and mocks with resources from [our sister site] Pretest Plus, which are designed to mirror the formats, question types and difficulty levels you’ll face on exam day for a number of tests including: the ISEB Pretest, the London Consortium Test, Quest Assessment school-specific tests, Cambridge Select Insight and the CAT4. The more familiar you are with how online tests work, the calmer and more prepared you’ll feel when it’s the real thing.
Know how to use different strategies for different tests. And use practice tests to experiment with some of the strategies we’re going to share below. This will help you to work out which approach works best for you. Everyone works differently, so discovering your best method during practice means you’ll have a reliable system come exam day. If you practise timing strategies and elimination methods during half term, they’ll become second nature.
Does Your Child Need More Support?
Be sure to visit our Courses page for upcoming courses, such as Easter Holiday Courses, Summer Courses, October Half Term Courses and more! These range in time from single to multi-day sessions delivered by our experts.
Smart Strategies for Different 11+ Pre-Test Types
If You CAN Go Back: Strategies for Non-Adaptive Tests
Use the two-phase approach:
Phase 1 – Speed Round
- Answer all the questions you know confidently.
- For harder questions, skip to return to later. Often, you’ll see a progress bar somewhere on the screen showing you which ones you’ve skipped, but if not, use your scrap paper to note them down.
- Don’t spend too long puzzling – keep moving at a regular pace. As a rule of thumb, you should allow up to 1 minute per Maths or English question and between 30-40 seconds per Reasoning question.
- Remember: some questions you will be able to answer in less time, leaving you more time to answer the others.
- Don’t race unless you’re getting to the end and you really have to. There is no point putting pressure on yourself!
Phase 2 – Problem-Solving Round
- Return to any skipped questions.
- Work through them more carefully with step-by-step calculations/notes/diagrams – anything you might need to write down to help you eliminate and solve the question.
- Use your scrap paper to work things out.
- Eliminate more wrong answers. This improves your odds of selecting the correct answer.
- Make educated guesses – never leave blanks.
- If you have time, check back over your easiest answers to catch silly mistakes.
If You CAN’T Go Back: Strategies for Adaptive Tests
Use the time you have sensibly. Think carefully about each answer because once you submit, it’s done! To ensure you get to the higher level, more challenging questions – which will allow you to secure higher marks overall – you need to get the first ones correct so that the adaptive algorithm kicks in.
But don’t panic about the adaptive nature of a test like this. It’s important to remember that while 11+ assessments are challenging, they’re designed with clear boundaries – no question will be impossibly difficult. If you’ve been working through our Pretest Plus practice tests and materials, you’re already familiar with the full spectrum of questions, from foundational concepts to advanced problems. Our materials place particular emphasis on higher-level questions, so nothing in the actual exam is likely to be harder than what you’ve already practised.
Use this six-step approach for every question:
- Read the question twice to be absolutely sure what’s being asked – even the easy ones, you can’t afford to make ‘silly’ mistakes.
- Work through your answer step-by-step – and use the scrap paper if needed.
- Try to work out your answer before looking at the choices.
- Check each option systematically.
- Eliminate obviously wrong answers (I go on to mention the elimination method below).
- Before submitting or pressing ‘next’, ask yourself: ‘Does this actually answer the question?’
A Reiteration of Key Exam Skills
Many of these you will know, but refreshing yourself of the methods open to you during a multiple-choice exam can be reassuring – so please read the below:
- Read questions carefully and read each question at least twice. (Sometimes you might have to read a tricky question many times. This is perfectly fine. And no one but you will know!)
- Look out for key words like ‘not’, ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘most’ or ‘least’ – as these completely change what you’re being asked. It’s easy to miss these words if you’re reading too quickly and then misinterpreting the complete question!
- Master the elimination method. This is your best friend in multiple-choice exams. For example, you’re often able to eliminate answers with absolute words like ‘always’ or ‘never’ (unless the question needs an absolute); options that are clearly silly or unrelated; choices that sound right but don’t actually answer the question asked; or answers that have just one wrong word that makes them incorrect.
- Be wary of distractor questions. These are ones that are very close to the correct answer or could be plausible, but aren’t. Examples include options that sound credible, but the information is not actually given when you look carefully at the source information (i.e. the passage in English comprehension), or as we said above, an answer that looks right but has just one wrong word or digit that makes it incorrect.
- Always make your best guess. In adaptive online exams, you have to enter an answer before you can move on, so make it count. And remember: if you’re unsure, use elimination to narrow it down and pick the most logical answer.
- Trust your first instinct (mostly). Usually, your first answer is correct unless you’ve spotted a clear mistake. In non-adaptive sections, don’t go back and change answers just because you’re second-guessing yourself – only change if you’re certain you misread the question or made an obvious error.
Subject-Specific Online Exam Tips
Now I want to share some subject-specific tips that might help you:
For 11+ English Comprehension Questions:
- Read the first few paragraphs of the passage to give you a feel for what it’s about and the style of the author. The beginning questions usually present in order of the passage (although it doesn’t always continue that way), which means you should be able to find the relevant information and answer these quite quickly.
- The passage is usually scrollable. Quickly scroll down to the bottom so you know the length.
- Remember, for some questions, you might have to combine information from various sections of the passage.
- Similarly, the information you need might be on preceding or following lines.
- Always use line numbers if they’re given – they’re there to help!
- Choose the answer best supported by evidence from the text. I cannot stress this enough.
- Don’t pick answers that go beyond what the passage actually says.
For 11+ Maths Questions:
- Try to solve it in your head or on scrap paper first, then look for your answer in the choices.
- Use your scrap paper as much as you need to. Draw diagrams, try out various combinations, use it to make a note of calculations as you go – you don’t have to hold everything in your head.
- Check your units make sense (for example, would a bottle really hold 500 litres?)
- Watch out for distractor questions – eliminating an incorrect answer that is only a digit apart from the correct one takes focus. (That’s also why it’s a good idea to work out the answer yourself first, before you look at the options – so you can be doubly sure you’re right!)
For 11+ Reasoning Questions:
- As above – use your scrap paper as much as you need to.
- For rotation questions, we know some schools suggest candidates use their scrap paper as tracing paper and holding it up to the screen. (This is very much a workaround, and only do this if your school condones it and you know it won’t be classed as cheating.)
- Every 10 questions, check the time – are you on track?
For 11+ Creative Comprehension Questions:
- Skim all of the sources first to get a mental map of what and where the information is before diving into questions.
- Don’t try to read everything in detail initially – you can’t retain 6-7 sources fully!
- Read the question first, then find the relevant source(s). This is much more efficient than trying to memorise everything
- Since this section is non-adaptive, you can jump between questions. If a question requires cross-referencing multiple sources and seems time-consuming, flag it (on your scrap paper) and come back to it.
- Look out for keywords and match them in questions to specific sources (e.g. if asked about ‘population growth’, you can quickly scan for the graph or table with that data.
- Some questions require synthesising information from 2-3 sources. These often take longer, so plan your time accordingly.
- Don’t get bogged down reading one source thoroughly – you might run out of time!
- Check you’re looking at the right source. It’s easy to confuse similar data.
For 11+ Puzzles and Problem-Solving Questions
- Read any instructions carefully. Interactive puzzles often have specific rules. Missing a detail will lead you astray
- Start with what you know. Make any obvious moves first to simplify the puzzle
- If stuck after 30 seconds or so, try something! These puzzles reward experimentation. Making a move often reveals a way to work to the solution. Don’t just stare at the screen – drag, click, rotate!
- Always look out for patterns. Many puzzles have a logical pattern or sequence you need to spot.
- Don’t spend too long on one question. Since this section is non-adaptive, you can skip and return. Move on after 2-3 minutes if you’re completely stuck. This means at the end you can return to skipped questions with fresh eyes.
- Tackle easier puzzles first. This helps to warm you up to this way of thinking, build confidence and means you’re banking marks on the questions you do know.
- Stay calm if a puzzle seems confusing. That’s normal and you won;t be the only person feeling that way! Break it down into smaller steps and trust your own logic thinking – If something seems like it should work, test it.
Conclusion
Online multiple-choice exams can feel daunting at first, but with practice, preparation, and the right strategies, your child can feel calm, confident, and ready to succeed. Every online test is a chance to show what they’ve learned – and these skills will serve them well throughout their education.
I hope this article has been helpful. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Good luck!
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Author(s)
Louise Lang
Director of Learning