It is just not fair!

It must be a great relief to the souls of the men and women who build and develop our 11+ tests that parents are not allowed to see the actual 11+ test papers. It is conceivable that the test makers could come under considerable pressure from parents about the content of the tests.

It is all a question of what is fair. Is it fair to include a question that a loving parent or a diligent tutor has not covered in the examination preparations? Can you imagine the fuss and furore if parents were able to pick over individual questions?

`Oh no! That did not come up in the papers we did. There was nothing about that in the lessons.’

Suppose, that by design, questions of the following type were included. You see at a glance that these questions measure how well you can cope with applied ideas, such as understanding of technical drawings. How will we encourage girls into engineering if we do not look for strengths in the field when the children are ten and eleven years old?