Selective School Tests: What's Your Advice?

[Joseph41]

Hey all!

So I know heaps of you have recently sat selective school tests. I thought in this thread we could create a place where people can give all of their advice for students sitting the same tests next year and beyond.

No matter how big or how small, and whether you got in or not, what things did you do well? What should have you focussed on more?

[EEEEEEP]

Hey all!

So I know heaps of you have recently sat selective school tests. I thought in this thread we could create a place where people can give all of their advice for students sitting the same tests next year and beyond.

No matter how big or how small, and whether you got in or not, what things did you do well? What should have you focussed on more?

- Do study books to help you memorise and get familiar with questions


- Go to a selective school exam prep place - tuition or college
- Do IQ tests for maths and patterns
- Do timed creative writing practice and get someone to mark it
...

Some of this may seem a bit overkill, but you gotta do what you gotta do for selective schools.
..
I myself did get into selective school and I studied vigorously and extensively for it. I kinda had one of those coaching /study regimes.

[strawberries]

Okay I'm going to be slightly controversial here...
I genuinely believe that you don't need tutoring to get in. It is a waste of time and money.
The tests (for selective schools at least) are designed so that you don't need tutoring to get in.

But I do think is that you need to be a fairly decent student and doing reasonable in class

If you want, you can look at practice questions/sample papers, you don't need like 59394843 books/resources.
The Vic tests do have a small time limit and loads of questions, so you might need to know how to work fast
Also some questions are logic-based but there is a way to work around them.

So yeah, I'm not saying don't look at any resources, but you don't need to spend that much money (and time).

[quinn_03]

Echoing what strawbs said here. You do not need tutoring. I've never done any tutoring or anything in my life, and I've gotten into Macrob, and John Monash this year. If you have the determination and the commitment to study, then you can get in. You don't even really need that many resources. I just studied from math textbooks. I didn't prepare much for english since I know that my writing is at a pretty decent level already, and the english tests are kind of harder to prepare for than maths?
My advice would be, study consistently and focus on getting a good grasp on maths, because those are the tests you can really excel in if you study. If you have any more questions feel free to message me

[jz27]

[boooom]

Did the Victorian year 9 test yearssss ago - here's some tips!

- Draw out the reasoning questions. They're designed to be confusing, so anything to help break them down will help. You don't have to draw a full picture, maybe some lines connecting the words or something like that, but just anything to make sense of the question.
- Start your creative writing smack bang in the problem/issue/climax. You don't have the time to write a full narrative with introduction, character development etc., and you by starting there, you'll have the most opportunity to show off your creative writing abilities. That is, how well you are able to 'paint a picture' and get whatever scene that is in your head into your reader's.
- Your ability to flesh out ideas and express yourself clearly is what matters for the writing tasks. How cool your plot is or how complex your arguments are won't score you much points if you aren't able to substantiate them.
- Read the reading comprehension questions first before you start reading the actual material. That way, you know what you're looking for and don't have to constantly go back and forth to find the answer.
- The math tests generally cover the year 8 and 9 syllabus - sometimes a bit of 10.
- If you run out of time, pick a letter and guess! Seriously, I got a high average from guessing about half of the math test.
- They prioritise the reasoning tests when selecting students because the skills tested here aren't really something they can teach.