Get all the right tools. Ensure you have lots of rough paper, a few pencils and a watch. Get used to practicing with all these essentials so you’re used to using them when it comes to your real eleven plus exam. Parents should check with the relevant body to ensure that these tools are permitted in the actual eleven plus exam.

Practice as many different types of 11+ questions and tests as you can before sitting your real exam or selection test. The more questions you practice the more confident you will be and the more types of questions you will have seen.

Parents should ask the school or LEA for information on what type of 11+ exam their child will be sitting. You have the right to ask what sort of questions will be asked, where the child will be expected to sit the elevenplus exam and how long the test will be. Will the test be in the school or at another venue?

Make sure your child is in a comfortable environment when they practice any form of question whether it is pencil and paper or online eleven plus practice. Even the internet based online eleven plus exams will require your child to do “rough work “ on a page. Don’t sit them down to a practice just before going out or when they’re going to be disturbed. It’s important to give your child your full attention both when practicing and when taking the real exam.

Take the practice tests offered by the school or LEA. Before sitting the 11+ exam you’ll often be given practice questions to have a go at. They’re normally quite short and may have a worked example, have a go at those to get a flavour for the type of questions you’ll be given.

You need to practice various questions to be comfortable your skills are up to the required standard to sit the 11+ exam.

Read any guidance provided before sitting your selection test. Make sure you make a note of how much time you have and roughly how long you should be spending on each question.

Don’t get bogged down on a question. If you get stuck, don’t let the clock run down, move on, you might find the next question easier and you’ll pick up more marks by moving on.

Move on if you think a question is going to take a really long time, mark it and if possible come back to it. Some questions can be really time consuming and you may be better off coming back to it. Once you leave a question forget about it until you return to it later in the exam.

Don’t guess wildly. Your eleven plus exam test score will be made up of a combination of speed and accuracy. It’s important not to haphazardly guess to try and finish all the questions. Work carefully and as quickly as you can. The more types of questions you practice the quicker you will get at each type.

Spend a few seconds familiarising yourself with any graph/table/pie chart/diagram you’re presented with before launching into the question. Make a mental note of what the labels are telling you so you have an idea of what information you have been provided with.

Get used to doing rough working on paper. The quickest way to do your calculations is often on a piece of paper. Use a big A4 sheet as you’ll have enough room to do your workings. Leave yourself plenty of space so you’re not cramming your workings into the corner.

Quality practice products will provide both scores and professional feedback on your performance to help improve future scores and understanding. This should be especially true of any online elevenplus exams practice aids. This feedback will help you find out how many questions you got right and where you could improve.