Many anxious parents and teachers ask this question and clearly there are a number of differences between the two practice systems.
What pencil and paper practice offers is fairly obvious but subscribing to an online eleven plus exams practice platform should mean that your child gets easy and instant access to a wide variety of questions.
With an online 11+ system they can access the practice anywhere that they can connect to the internet and this of course means anywhere and anytime. These online elevenplus sites are ideal for practicing when on holiday and you don’t want the hassle of taking books with you.
A quality product will instantly mark the practice test and give instant, relevant and professional feedback on their answers. This feedback is central to improving your child’s chances of passing their 11+exam. The better ones will often email details of what ever 11+ practice the child has just taken to a chosen email address.
We all know that “Practice makes perfect” but more accurately “Practice, the results of which are known, makes perfect.” It is feedback on practicing Verbal reasoning for the eleven plus or whatever other 11+ subject that a child is practicing that will improve performance and therefore 11+ scores. Relevant online feedback is essential.
Preparing for this demanding 11+ exam does require a lot of time and effort by both parent and child and one big plus of an onlineelevenplus exam platform is that it will mark any papers immediately. This can be important as marking these practice tests can be very time consuming and when a parent is busy can become an onerous task.
A good online 11+ exam site will allow a child to try out different answers, repeat the same Non-Verbal Reasoning 11+ questions and other elevenplus questions or practice the same test again and again and see their score immediately.
Seeing their scores improve and receiving good feedback for areas that they are weak at can be highly motivating. I cannot emphasis how important feedback on how to do elevenplus exams questions really is.
Many of these sites use a computer based online11+exam system that is based on the child choosing his/her answer from 4 or 5 options. This is known as multiple-choice and these sites often encourage a child to “click and go” quickly to the next question without any real learning.
Some of the actual 11+ exams are of this type but when preparing for an online exam a child must learn to work out the answer and not just guess or choose any answer.
Online elevenplus sites offer a different means of preparing for the 11+ exam that is often more interesting for a child who is very “computer savvy.” They can help your child stay motivated during practice sessions for the 11 Plus.
In particular, if subscribing to one of these online 11+exams sites, look out for a wide variety of question types, immediate marking, instant and relevant feedback, the ability to practice any question type over and over again and as the child improves their understanding and knowledge the online eleven plus site should provide the ability for the child to take a timed test of 50 or 100 questions.
These timed tests will help prepare your child for the actual 11+ papers they will be asked to sit.
Combining online11+ papers with pencil and paper preparation is possibly the optimum way to prepare your child for their elevenplus exam. Some companies such as Learning Together provide material for the 11+ exam using both an online 11+ platform and a wide range of eleven plus books.
This company also have very good explanatory videos.