Split it into rectangles: area
Area is length times width, which your child already knows. The 11+ asks about shapes that are not rectangles — so cut them into ones that are.
Shape
7 posts on this. Written by Mat and Alicia, who prepare pupils for the Buckinghamshire Transfer Test every week in Winslow.
Label the sides the diagram left blank: perimeter
You already know perimeter is the distance round the edge. On a real paper the question is working out the sides nobody labelled — and there is a rule for that.
Make the move yourself first: transformations
Two moves at a time, diagonal mirror lines, and one option in every row designed to look right. Do the move before you look at the answers.
Packing is not dividing: volume
Volume is length times width times height. But how many boxes fit inside another box is a different question, and dividing the volumes gets it badly wrong.
Name it, then write the total down: angles
Almost every missing-angle question is one of four totals with something taken away from it. Name the angle first, and check your answer against the picture.
Corridor then stairs: coordinates
Along first, then up. The grid does not stop at zero any more, and negatives, reflections and midpoints that land on halves are what Year 5 has to handle.
Find the clue that rules out: properties of shape
Knowing what a rhombus is stopped being the hard part. Three clues at once, sorting tables and Venn diagrams are what the test does with them now.