SEAG transfer test techniques can make a significant difference in a student’s test scores. Teaching your child SEAG transfer test techniques can also help improve their confidence and self-esteem during the tests. It’s all well and good knowing all of those Maths and English topics. But if your child can’t manage their time during the test, or if they can’t record their answers properly, this could impact their performance in the transfer tests. That’s why I am going to go through some of the different test techniques that I recommend to my students to help them become confident and enhance their transfer test readiness!
Is your child sitting the SEAG Transfer Test this November? Make sure your child is transfer test ready this summer by booking them a space on one of my SEAG Test Technique and Revision Summer Workshops! In these workshops, I will be going through different test techniques to help students complete the tests to the best of their ability and give them tips and tricks to help them take on the SEAG transfer tests with confidence! Book your child’s space here! This workshop will run for TWO DAYS ONLY in July! So book now before the spaces are gone!
What is test technique?
Test technique is a term used to describe different tips and tricks that students can use while they are sitting a test or exam to help them complete questions to the best of their ability. Using specific techniques during a test can help students with their time management, completing questions quickly without rushing. They can bring awareness to key information from questions to help with their problem-solving skills. Test techniques can also help ensure they understand and fully complete the questions without losing marks or leaving parts of the question incomplete.
Why are SEAG transfer test techniques important for students?
There are a lot of topics that students need to cover before sitting the transfer test. Especially for maths because any maths topic from the Northern Ireland Primary School Curriculum can be asked. The English sections of the tests follow the same pattern, spelling, punctuation, grammar and comprehension. No matter how well your child understands a topic, if they can’t get a test paper finished or understand what a question is asking them to do, this can impact their final score. Teaching your child different techniques to help them perform their best and be calm on test day is extremely important to help them reach their full potential in the SEAG transfer test papers.
9 SEAG transfer test techniques to help your child perform at their best on test day
To help your child prepare as best as they can for the SEAG transfer test papers, I have put together a list of 9 test techniques to help your child perform at their best on test day. There are still a few months to go before the real test days, so your child has plenty of time to try them out and see what works best for them. Also, feel free to add in your own test techniques if your child finds something that works well for them!
1) Watch those timings!
One of the most common questions parents have for me is how to help their child with time management during the tests. Students either don’t have enough time to complete all of the questions, or they complete them too quickly and have too much time left! The perfect scenario is that students will complete the paper and have 5-10 minutes left to check over it at the end. However, it doesn’t always work out that way!
When your child starts off completing SEAG transfer test practice papers, the timings don’t matter, as you are trying to get them comfortable with completing tests. However, after a couple of months of competing papers, they should be able to complete a full paper within the time limit. The general rule of thumb is one minute per question. Take this with a pinch of salt, though, as some questions may need more than one minute and some could be answered within a few seconds! What I usually tell my students is to make sure they have completed the English section of the test in 25-30 minutes. This means they are halfway and have half of the time left to complete the Maths section.
How to help your child if they struggle with test timings
If a student is really struggling with time management during the tests and they just can’t get it, there are a couple of things that you can do at home to help them. The first activity is to set a timer for 30 minutes. Give your child the English section of the test and let them know they have 30 minutes to complete all of the English questions. If they need this broken down even further, give them 15 minutes to complete the spelling, punctuation and grammar questions and 15 minutes for the comprehension. For the second 30 minutes, you can do the same with the maths. You can give them 20 minutes for the multiple-choice questions and 10 minutes for the open-response questions. (There are less open-response questions which is why I split it this way)
The second activity that you can do at home to help with your child’s time management during the tests is to sit with them or keep an eye as they complete their practice papers. Give them the full hour to complete the paper, but as they complete each section time them on your phone or watch. For example, set the timer as they start the spelling section and stop the timer once they have finished that particular section. Make a note of how long it takes them. Do the same for the punctuation, grammar, comprehension, maths multiple-choice and maths open-response questions. Complete this four or five times and see if there are any similarities or patterns with your child’s timings for each section. This can help you understand how long each section takes them and focus on areas that take them longer to complete.
2) Read it once, then read it again!
The SEAG transfer tests NI are known for asking ‘wordy’ questions which have little ‘sneaky’ parts to confuse and catch out students. The best way to not get caught out is to read the question and then read it again. Your child doesn’t have to do this for every single question; some will be straightforward. But this is something that I recommend, particularly with the comprehension section and also the wordier maths questions and word problems. Re-reading certain questions can help ensure your child fully understands what they are being asked to do. It also helps avoid making mistakes!
3) Get the highlighters out
One of the great things about SEAG is that they allow highlighters into the real test days! This is great for students who need highlighters to pull out the relevant information for a question. Let your child use highlighters during their practice papers to see if this is something that works for them. Let me just say this clearly: students should use highlighters to focus their attention on key parts of a question. They shouldn’t use them just to make their working out look pretty or colour coordinated! If you feel that using highlighters will be a distraction for your child, then don’t use them. But if they struggle with understanding what a question is asking them to do, give highlighters a try.
4) Star it and move on!
Another test technique that I recommend for my students is that if they are spending too much time on a question and are getting nowhere with it, it’s time to star it and move on! There is no point sitting on a question for 10 minutes and not getting anywhere when your child could be using the time to complete questions that they do know and can get marks on! If your child starts to become confused with a question, tell them to put a big star or circle it, and they can come back to it at the end. Sometimes taking a break from a question lets their mind calm down, and when they come back to it later, they can do it because they aren’t panicking.
5) Spot the tricky spelling and punctuation mistakes
The spelling and punctuation sections of the SEAG transfer tests follow the same layout, and the same errors can come up over and over again. Some trickier mistakes can come up during these sections, and if your child is aware of them, they can be on the lookout for them. For spelling, these include homophones, correct letters in the wrong order and the American spellings of words. For punctuation these include, speech marks opening and not closing or vice versa and apostrophes for singular and plural words used incorrectly. You can check out my blog post, ‘SEAG Tests : How to prepare for the spelling, grammar and punctuation sections,’ for more tips and tricks for completing these sections of the tests.
How to help your child complete the spelling and punctuation sections quickly and efficiently
A technique that I recommend to my students when completing the spelling section of the SEAG transfer tests is to tick the words that they are 100% sure are correct. This will allow their brain to focus on the words that don’t look right to them. They can narrow their focus on these words instead of a full selection of words. I also recommend doing this for the punctuation section. Encourage your child to tick that all of the capital letters and full stops are in the right places. If speech marks open, tick where they close. They can do this for all of the punctuation marks in the sentences. This is a tip that helps my students with these sections of the tests. And it is completely ok to do this on the real tests because it is part of their working out.
6) Switch it up
This next SEAG transfer test technique depends on your child and how they like to work, but if your child is better and quicker at completing the maths section of the tests and spends more time in the English section, I recommend completing the maths section of the test FIRST. This means they can complete the questions they are stronger at first and guarantee marks there. They can use the extra time on the English section of the test without panicking, thinking they might miss out on Maths questions. You can trial this with your child on a few papers to see how they get on. Some of my students like to complete the paper in order, but some have seen their scores improve by completing the maths sections first. So give it a go and see what works best for your child.
7) Check over
In an ideal world, your child will have 10 minutes to check over their paper. But chances are this won’t happen because the timings are tight for the transfer test. There are 56 questions with a comprehension to read and also work out to complete. So really, it’s less than one minute per question, but don’t tell your child that! If they find they only have a few minutes left at the end of the test, encourage them to check over the questions that they found tricky rather than re-reading the whole test paper. But if they do have time to go over the whole paper, they should absolutely do that!
8) Keep calm and don’t panic
Out of all my SEAG transfer test techniques, this one is easier said than done. Keep calm and don’t panic. We’ve all been there, getting so overwhelmed and panicked that our brains don’t seem to function. Pre-test jitters are completely normal, but if your child is completely panicked and anxious during the whole test, then this is not good for them. Having extreme nerves and panic can impact their ability to answer even the simplest of questions. Teach your child ways to keep calm during the test. Encourage them to take a few breaths to calm down if they start to become overwhelmed. Practice this at home while they are completing practice papers. At my SEAG Test Technique Workshops, I will be encouraging the students to breathe and keep calm during the tests, as well as lots of other tips and tricks. Don’t forget to book their spot here!
9) Know those papers inside out!
My last test technique that I have for you today is to practice, practice and practice some more! Familiarity brings confidence. The more your child is exposed to SEAG-style papers in a test setting, the more confident they can be on test day. Completing SEAG-style questions and recording them on a SEAG-style answer sheet helps them to become familiar with the test process.
To fully prepare your child for the SEAG transfer tests and give them the complete test experience, you can book them onto a SEAG Mock Test. Mock tests are perfect for making the unknown, not so unknown anymore. Knowing what to expect can help reduce test-day anxiety. The more mock tests they complete, the more ‘normal’ they will feel, and hopefully by the real test day, they will be so used to it, it won’t even faze them! You can book your child onto one of my SEAG Transfer Test Mock Days here!
More information on SEAG transfer test techniques
14 Tips for Test Taking Success
How to prepare properly for the SEAG Transfer Tests
Preparing your child to sit the transfer tests
The powerful benefits of your child sitting mock transfer tests
Teaching your child test techniques can help them perform at their best on the real test days! Try each one and see what works best for your child. You might need to change each technique a bit or add in your own. But it’s all about making the transfer test experience better for your child, so do what works best for them. It’s not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. If you would like some guidance and support for your child this summer, book them a space on one of my test technique workshops or SEAG Mock days here! Let’s help your child master SEAG transfer test techniques together!
