Most students compare selective entry maths to the concepts they have learned at school.
They ask me questions about “How can these questions relate to that learning? Why isn’t it the same?”
To tell you straight up, the selective entry maths test has questions from the academic content covered at school up to a year 8 to 8.5 level.
The only difference is the exam structure.
The selective entry maths test is designed to evaluate fast thinking; your ability to apply newly learnt knowledge immediately; in schools, you are instead taught a concept and then asked specific questions to test that one skill you have learnt.
The exam requires you to solve a question within 30 seconds and repeat this process until the rest of the 59 questions are answered.
Therefore, to score a superior you need a consistent learning approach that is beyond surface level conceptual understanding.
Part of your strategy should be to create a learning plan leading up to the time-frame left until the exam date.
There are a couple of steps you can follow:
- The Australian Curriculum Framework
The first place you want to start to build your learning plan is the Australian Curriculum website. In order to be ready for the selective entry exams, your child needs the content up to a year 8.5 level (mid-way through year 9).
- Categorize into learning capabilities
You would group up all the related skills into what we call learning capabilities, that is, broad categories covering the same umbrella of concepts. You can follow the Australian Curriculum and group into ‘Number and Algebra’, ‘Measurement and Geometry’ and ‘Statistics and Probability’, or create your own.
- Place them in order, and eliminate the repeats
In your learning plan, you want to eliminate the repeated content. On an Excel sheet, place each skill into a continuum, from what they will need to learn first, before moving onto the next skill. For example, you would need to learn how to factorise, before you can learn the Null Factor Law, before learning how to sketch a parabola.
- Design a timeline
The only challenge now is to design a realistic timeline to consume all this information, getting repeated exposures and opportunities to demonstrate knowledge.
I find that one skill a week is appropriate for year 7s, and one skill every two weeks is appropriate for years 6.
- Following through
Now the most important part – following through on the plan! You would want to design a consistent schedule once or twice a week, where you would not worry about schoolwork, and to just focus on working through your continuum.
If this all seems like a bit much, reach out to us – we’re experts at navigating these steps and tailoring them to effectively work for your student.
