When you, and your child, are working through eleven plus exercises how do you help your child to differentiate between generalising over objects or distinguishing between objects? Sometimes you are trying to suggest to your child that he or she should be looking for common elements. At other times you will want your child to find minute differences.
The old Look and Say method of Janet and John reading encouraged a child to look at the shape and pattern of works. “Look John. Look.” Some eleven plus exercises also appear to involve rather similar close scrutiny of material. Other early discrimination exercises at school, some years ago, would have asked children to estimate to the nearest yard and then to the nearest inch. In today’s world we could be looking at the difference between a metre and a millimetre.
A German psychologist (Kohler), many years ago, trained a hen to go to the lighter of two containers to collect food. He then removed this container and replaced it with a darker one.
Eleven Plus Question
Which container did the hen then go for?
A The hen was confused and flapped its wings in frustration
B The hen chose the darkest one
C The hen selected the lightest container
D The hen tried the medium coloured container
The answer is obvious to all – the hen chose the medium bowl – because it was now the lighter of the two.
You may want your child to reject the dark answer – then the light answer – leaving the confusion and the medium answer to re-examine. Some eleven plus questions, however, seem to have answers that are remarkably similar – and thus delivering a bewildering scenario to your child.
As you wave your child a fond farewell – and you watch fondly as he or she walks into the examination hall – just repeat a little mantra.
My child’s brain is bigger than that of a chicken.
My child’s brain is bigger than that of a chicken.
My child’s brain is bigger than that of a chicken.
My child’s brain is bigger than that of a chicken.
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