Last minute 2021 NSW Selective Exam Tips
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Hi, my name is John and today I will be going through some NSW Selective exam tips for 2021. What do you need to bring, what you should be aware of and how can your child be in the best position when doing the exam.
The NSW Selective exam is undergoing some changes this year with Cambridge Assessment now being the ones who will be creating and administering the exam. Having taught numerous students over my 5 years of teaching experience, I have come to realise there are some mistakes that parents and students make which can easily be corrected if they had someone who could advise them correctly. As the parent, it should be their responsibility to make sure the admin side of the preparation is already sorted so the students can simply focus on the exam at hand. Therefore, I will be sharing what has worked for that I personally teach so that your child will be in the most optimal mindset to succeed. I am going to segment this to prior the exam, during the exam and after the exam.
Prior to the exam –
The first point is to make sure you have everything your child needs for the exam. You will have to bring your test authority letter which shows your application number and which school you are doing the exam. You can bring a snack and a bottle of water. For the bottle of water, it must be clear without any labels so that would mean a plastic bottle with the label ripped off. This is important because you do not want to bring a bottle that is not clear and has your child not be able to have access to water throughout the exam. Furthermore, in regard to the snack, you can bring. I recommend bringing something quite light such as a fruit. Don’t bring an entire lunch packed because for starters, the break time is only 30 minutes and secondly, you do not want to be in that ‘food coma’ by eating too much prior to the second portion of the exam. Also on top of this, bring everything in a clear plastic bag like a large sandwich bag that can store like a banana, water bottle and your test authority letter.
Secondly, you want to be on time. Be at the exam hall 20-30 minutes prior to the exam. This will allow your child to be assimilated with the layout, where everyone is and where the amenities are. You can find out where they need to stand in terms of being in lines – typically you have to line up with people in your school as well as know where the toilets and bubblers are. This is important during the break as well in case you obviously need to go to the bathroom. You don’t want to be wasting your valuable break time on doing this so come early and survey it together.
Thirdly, your child will have to be wearing their school uniform. If it is cold, bring a jumper or a jacket as well. This may be a great idea as the exam hall may be extremely cold from the air conditioning so if you had a jumper on, that could help you concentrate on the exam. Additionally, the exam site says to bring a hat. I don’t think this is necessary as that would just bring an additional item of clothing you will have to carry around with you. You won’t be able to bring a school bag to the exam so it would be best to pack light and skip that altogether.
During the exam
Your child needs to be really mindful of the time. There will not be any exam warnings so stuff like – half time or 5 minutes left, there will not be any of that. That is why it is critical for students to self-manage their time and make sure they are progressing well in that regard. Students are technically allowed to bring a watch if it does not make any sounds however since the exams are based on the exam clocks, I found that students had more reliability when they looked at that rather than their own watch.
Your child will be given a 20-minute break. Make sure during this time, they go to the bathroom, stretch their legs and eat their snack. Like I mentioned before, do not eat too much here. Additionally, you do not want to be talking too much with your classmates and trust me, depending on the school there will be many people you know. You want to be in the right headspace because you still have multiple exams left to do.
During the exam as well, you want to be making sure you are marking the answers in the right spot. On top of this, you want to be making sure that you are writing up the answers you are tossing up for each question on the question sheet. This is the best time to still utilise this years paper-based format so you can ensure that you are able to use up any time at the end of the exam to revisit certain questions. You can do this by making a symbol next to certain questions as well as taking advantage of this information with educated guesses in case you are about to run out of time. As the test next year onwards will be online, make sure you are utilising this advice.
Post exam
After the exam, asked your child how they did. Did they do well? Did they screw up? This is valuable information, so you know whether you need to change your school options or not. You will have a couple of weeks to be able to make these changes if needed.
If your child did not feel confident following the exam or if you don’t want to lose their progress, then I would definitely recommend still doing additional homework on top of what school allocates. This can be as little or as much as you would like however I do encourage you all to take a bit of a break especially if you have been studying a lot for the exam for many years.
In conclusion, there are a variety of events and information that need to be taken into consideration. This goes beyond what I have already outlined so I hope you in a great position where you feel ‘ready’. If you don’t it may be a good idea to think of alternative options in case you do not make it into a selective school or getting some specialised help just to improve on the foundations.
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