Do you need an Eleven Plus app?

Do you remember how many colours your child could recognise and name by the age of four? Suppose your child could remember twelve different colours or hues – would this show an acute sense of colour or would it be the result of many hours of learning? Presumably at some stage or another you would have supplied the colour tablets or colour strips to enable the learning. (There is probably an app for this today.)

Some eleven plus algebra may help. (If you get stuck just ask your child.)

Let P be the psychical factor (the factor outside of current human knowledge.)

Let I be the internal factors relating to the recall of colours. (The brain power.)

Let E be the external factors. (How much time you have spent drilling colours into the poor child.)

P = I + E (The sum of the factors.)

We then have to have the unknown – which is often called X. We don’t know the extent and nature of the internal factors so we then substitute X. This now gives us:

P = X + E.

If a four year old pre eleven plus child, however, has been brought up in an environment where there are limited colours – and no exposure to a spectrum of colours – then the feat of recalling twelve colours would pose a real difficulty.

Back to the eleven plus. Your child may be asked to substitute numbers for letters. Find P if I = 5 and E = 9.

P then is 5 + 9

P = 14.

Find X if P = X + E. Let P = 20 and E = 8.

20 = X + 8

12 = X

X = 12

The word psychical does not play a part in the eleven plus – unless the word is used in the sense of: “Capable of extraordinary mental processes, such as extrasensory perception and mental telepathy”.

If your child, in the middle of the eleven plus, could send you a little message telepathically (which is communication through means other than the senses) and say to you: “Mum, or Dad, what is the answer to number 34?”

You will have guessed by now the eleven plus question read:

Mary knew that that there were three primary colours. She knew too that that were three secondary colours.

A) How many intermediate colours would be formed mixing primary colours with secondary colours?

B) How many main divisions?


If you were able to beam back the answer `12’ your best `playground’ friend may ask you: How did you do that?”

You would be able to reply: “Thelma, my dear friend. Do not rely on any psychic phenomena – just encourage your child to read and keep reading.”