Buckinghamshire 11+ English
Wide reading helps enormously, and it is not enough on its own. A great many marks turn on knowing precisely what a question is asking for.
Comprehension
8 posts on this. Written by Mat and Alicia, who prepare pupils for the Buckinghamshire Transfer Test every week in Winslow.
Read the question first, then go hunting
Tables and fact blocks are not read, they are searched. Know what shape of answer you want, find the right row and the right column, and never re-read the whole thing.
Read past the gap: cloze passages
A passage with words missing, and the answer is often decided by what comes after the gap rather than what comes before it. How to fill them without guessing.
Stated, implied, or neither: inference questions
The answer is not written down anywhere in the passage — you have to work it out. Point to the Proof, and the third pile of answers that sound sensible and have nothing in the text behind them.
Effect, not meaning: why the writer chose that word
When a question asks why the writer chose a word, a definition is not the answer. The swap test that turns a definition into an effect, and what each paragraph is for.
When the spelling hides the sound
Knowing the definitions is the easy part. The harder questions in this type use words where the spelling and the sound disagree.
Finding it, not remembering it: retrieval questions in the 11+
Retrieval questions look like the easy ones until somebody starts a clock. The Scan and Check method we teach in Winslow, the small words that flip a question, and a passage to try.
A simile that runs on: imagery
Similes, metaphors and personification are the easy three. The fourth device has a comparing word in it too, and two little words spend their lives pretending.