January is, in my book, a month when you shouldn’t be doing anything more taxing than curling up on the sofa, under a blanket, and watching copious amounts of telly.
But for poor Flea, it’s exam season.
This September, Flea is going to be going up to secondary school. Don’t ask me how that happened, I have no idea. Last time I looked closely, Flea looked like this:
Anyway, the schools we’re applying to require the kids to sit an entrance exam, so Flea has spent the last six months or so at school working towards the exam. As a supportive, responsible parent, naturally I’ve been helping her.
Except it turns out that secondary school entrance exams? They’re actually kind of hard. In a random, why-would-you-ever-need-to-know-that sort of way. And an oh-god-I-think-I-used-to-know-that-hang-on-don’t-tell-me sort of way.
Take the questions below for example – all of which (incidentally) I struggled with. And I’m not a stupid person. Well, not entirely stupid, at any rate. They’re the sort of questions that I vaguely sense I do know how to work out – but I don’t really have the patience and my head hurts and can I just go and have a cup of coffee instead, please? Flea had to solve 85 of these questions in 45 minutes for her exam. Can you imagine?
I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Luckily, Flea’s smarter than me and passed the exam. But how would you do?  (I’ve put the answers at the bottom for you to check)Â
Tell me how you did in the comments.
Most of these, I think I can work out, given time and a pencil. Although I query whether the answer to Q6 is still a word in common use, and I do believe Q2 is missing a secondary set of brackets, so…
Regardless, only Northern pride is keeping me from marching into school and demanding to know what the freakin’ answer to Q9 is.
All I can say is Ffion’s favourite toy is that one Flea is holding. I sincerely hope that gets her through / makes her as much of a genius as your kid as her Mother will be no use!
Apparently that toy creates genius. Although Flea only ever really tried to eat it…
Question 1. What the? That totally threw me! My brain doesn’t work like that!
Well done Flea! X
I’m not sure my brain works full stop.
I’m ashamed to admit, 1 had me stumped!!
Well done Flea!!
She’s a little star.
Question one is exactly how my brain works! I genuinely love questions like that. I think I might get in to secondary school. I think number 9 might be 42 and 9. Not sure though.
Congratulations Flea!
You’re right. I realised once you said it what I was missing – the clue is that they want TWO numbers.
What? My brain hurts just looking at them…. well done Flea!
Me too.
I got them all right *smug face*. Those are my kind of questions 🙂
And yes I agree that questions 9 is 42 and 9, although as my husband pointed out that’s not really a sequence, it’s two interleaving sequences. Do we get bonus smug points for that?!
I think Flea’s doing very well to be answering questions like that at her age. She’s a smart cookie for sure 🙂
Q9 is 42 and 9 (you have to jump a number each time to get two different sequences – classic reasoning questions). I got 2 wrong, Q2 I thought was 16 and I didn’t get Q6 at all. I love these types of quizzes and I’m good at them. They can get you into a school on your capacity to think logically but they can’t motivate you to work hard and achieve good grades. I am proof of this. Otoh, someone with lower verbal and number reasoning skills at age 10, but with the right motivation (or a pushy mother) can excel all the way to Oxbridge and beyond. #justsaying
Having said all that – well done to Flea for passing the exams.
Good luck Flea…. I am way too embarrassed to say how I got on! My eldest started secondary last September, luckily he didn’t need an entrance exam, as apparently going by these results, I’d have been as much use as a chocolate tea pot in helping him.
Stevie x
I’m so glad I found this while my daughter is still in year 3! It’s going to take me a few years to figure all of this out and be of any use to her whatsoever. Thanks for the heads up 🙂