Congratulations to all who made it !
Unfortunately I did not get in but I am positive that this is not the end.....
Curious to know from the successful on some of their success stories / coaching strategies ( How long prepared ? which services they used ? ...)
Well, I'm not an expert on anything, so my answer might not be 100% accurate (but I did get in). I can tell you stuff like which tuitions were helpful in my opinion and what I did to prepare:
Tuitions:
Tuitions was a big role in my success. I originally started off with north shore coaching college, which I originally thought to be veru accurate (as the teachers there say it is), but soon discovered that it was not very accurate. Reading comp was harder than the real exam and maths and numeric were far easier than the real deal. I continued with it just to be accustomed to the time and pressure, but also started with james an. North shore charged a huge amount though, and it was not worth it tbh (the james an face-to-face classes were the same as their online classes, which was a rip-off).
At JAC, when I started, I used to get scores in maths/nr around 50%, read was 67% an verbal 80%. In my opinion, JAC was helpful and very accurate in everything except verbal reasoning. Also, for their writing, they grade you up high for some reason - I wrote a few essays that deserved 24/30 but I got 29 somehow (not fluked) and thought that their teacher was grading me really high for some reason. Writing was, to be honest, the deciding factor and I had mixed feelings about it taken out. I was happy because if I got a hard topic/stimulus, this would not affect my results but then writing was my strongest point according to james an. After some time at james an, I started getting reasonably good results like 85% for maths, 80-85% for reading, 80% for numerical and 85% for verbal.
Three weeks before the exam, I gave 2 mock tests at hendersons. This, in my opinion, had very accurate tests for all topics (but they forced you to do the writing even though it was scrapped as part of the real test). Verbal was literally the exact same as their practice exams (just different words), but hendersons makes reader quite difficult compared to the real test. It also had pretty accurate mock exams for maths and numerical. For me, hendersons worked the best and in both mock tests I got 2 sups (watch out though, because hendersons sometimes considers the superior mark as the top 33% when its actually the top 11%, so I converted it myself as they provide a graph of how everyone did).
Real Exam (Personal Experience):
Hendersons asks people about how the real exam went and this is what I wrote in their thing:
Mathematics - This year, the mathematics component was extremely difficult and almost all students were unable to finish it. Most guessed around 20-30 questions (I guess 20) and the questions were of a high calibre, as well as hard to complete in timed questions due to their working out required.
The 4 starting questions were all about basic numerology, decimal/fraction addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, but from then the exams became much harder. There were a couple of questions on probability, 2 different graphs to interpret (about 3 questions each) and two angle questions as well as a circle geometry question(which were all quite hard). Hendersons should make their maths harder by adding more formula-based questions and making it harder it general (by putting more difficult numbers to work with - the maths questions require plenty of working and by Q30 I think I had already finished my piece of working out paper).
Numerical Reasoning - As with mathematics, the NR component was very difficult, though slightly easier than the maths. The questions were very lengthy, and on the first page itself, complex word problems were given (which could be solved, given a minute per question, but were hard to do within 36 seconds). People guessed about 20-25 and it was difficult to read, understand and work out all those questions within the time limit. Hendersons should make their NR more challenging for future students by adding more word problems.
Some questions I remember were about the different routes to travel, some complex word problems about permutations/combinations (and also there were little to no number patterns which surprised me), data interpretation, and general word problems about age, SDT, volume/SA, geometry and more.
Verbal Reasoning - One thing that stood out was that verbal reasoning questions were very similar to henderson's exams. Most kids would have gotten about 40-45/60 in verbal reasoning, but then still had to guess about 5-10. The level of difficulty for me was a little under moderate.
Some question types were to use options and find out whether the two base words make a real compound word, syllogisms, a slightly time-consuming question about seating arrangements (if x sits next to y and y sits opposite to z etc), finding two statements which prove that, 2 questions on letter patterns, 3-4 questions on find a hidden word that continues on from two words, which word best suits both these categories (for categories like "shout" and "wood", bark would be the answer) and a few more questions. There were little anagrams, no family tree questions, little foreign language questions and no shape logic.
Reading Comprehension - The first thing to note is that reading comp was quite easy, though Hendersons makes it quite difficult (it should be made easier). The questions directed you to the line number and the passages were not too lengthy (only one ¾ page passage was there at the end).
There were 2 poems (about 10 lines and 6 lines), an informative text about ethos, pathos and logos, two cartoons - one about how trees would be planted everywhere if they had wifi and one about globalisation and how humans consume too many resources for our population. There was not much about grammar (I think 3-4), but in general RC was easy, Most people would have attained a score of around 38-42/50.
Basic Info/Summary:Not many people did well in the maths components (guessed around half), but most did pretty good in the english components.
There is no working out paper, aside from the back of the answer sheet.
The answer sheet was split up into columns of 15 and went till 60.
The papers were different colours:
VR - Yellow
NR - Green
RC - Pink
Math - White (2020’s colour was blue according to another user)
A superior is the top 11%, and the next 12% gets an above average, then the next 17% gets a high average, then the next 20% gets an average, then the next 17% gets a below average and the last 23% gets the lowest score (not sure what it is called). This is according to James an.
I think the test will be easier next year though, so don't worry too much about it and don't study too much at the start because it becomes really boring towards the end and when the exam is close.
I hope everyone who is doing the selective exams of Victoria finds this useful and best of luck to you all!
BTW Ock, what school did you choose, MHS?
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