The Elite Prep Pack
Twenty-four questions hard enough to find the habit that costs the mark
Twelve untimed, twelve against the clock, all answered out loud. One report showing where your child’s reasoning turns, in their own words, and what to do about it before exam day.
What your child does
Two sittings, a few days apart, at home. Each takes about an hour and can be paused at any point.
12 questions, no clock
About an hour, and pausable. With time to think, we see what your child can do at their best, and how they reason when nothing is rushing them.
12 new questions, five minutes each
On another day, against the clock, with a visible countdown. Exam conditions, where the habits that stay hidden under leisure come out.
One report covering all 24
Which habits survived the clock and which did not, where the time went on every question, and three things to work on next.
The questions
Ordinary 11+ questions cannot do this job: a child at this level answers them correctly and tells you nothing. Ours are written to sit at the edge of what a strong Year 6 can do.
- Written for this diagnostic, so no amount of past-paper practice has seen them
- Competition grade: worst cases, invariants, constructions and proofs that something cannot be done
- Each one built so that particular reasoning habits have a chance to show
- Answers verified by exhaustive search, not by eye
A question of this kind
“Nine coins lie on a table, all showing heads. A move is to turn over exactly four of them, any four you like. Can you make all nine show tails?”
Every attempt gets close, which keeps a child trying. The answer is that it cannot be done, and seeing why takes one idea rather than more effort. A child who keeps hunting, and a child who stops to ask whether it is possible at all, look identical on a mark scheme.
How we see the reasoning
Each question is answered in three steps, recorded and turned into text. That is where the evidence comes from: not whether the answer was right, but where the thinking turned.
Typing is available at every step, if your child prefers it.
Read it aloud
Catches the skipped “not”, the condition read past, the question answered instead of the one asked.
Explain the plan
Shows what your child is assuming before a single number is written down.
Work it through
Shows whether the plan survives contact with the arithmetic, and whether they notice when it doesn’t.
Twelve ways a strong child loses a mark
This is the whole list. Every question is chosen so that particular habits have a chance to show, and each one is counted, quoted and checked against what your child actually said — in both sittings, so you can see which ones only appear under time pressure.
Abandons a correct approach
Gets close with a correct method, then switches away because a result looks odd.
Accepts an answer that doesn't fit
An answer that contradicts the question, accepted without noticing.
Can't find a way in
Understands the question but never starts: no example tried, nothing drawn.
Jumps to a familiar method
Recognises a question type and applies a remembered method before checking it fits.
Keeps searching when it can't be done
Tries case after case without asking whether a solution exists at all.
Loses track of earlier results
Can do each step, but forgets or mixes up results from earlier steps.
Misreads the wording
Solves a slightly different question: misses 'not', 'at least' or 'each', or answers a different quantity.
Misses a condition the question never states
A sound method that ignores a limit the situation imposes, such as a remainder smaller than the divisor.
Reverses a relationship
Gets a comparison or an inverse the wrong way round, such as 'twice as many as' or undoing a step.
Slips in the working and doesn't re-check
A sound plan, a calculation slip, and a plausible answer accepted.
Stops searching too early
Finds some solutions and stops, or finds one when several exist.
Trusts one example
Tries a single case and treats the result as settled.
What you get back
Most reports tell you what a child got wrong. This one shows the moment it turned, in their own words, and turns it into something you can practise, on any question rather than just that one.
- Every question charted second by second: how long your child spent reading, planning and working
- All twelve habits counted, untimed against timed, so you can see which ones the clock brings out
- What was going through their head on each question, written from what they said
- All 24 questions in full, with what happened and their own words behind a click
- Three things to do over the next week or two, each one on a habit rather than a question
- A short brief you can forward to a tutor, including what to leave alone
What it will not do
- Not more practice papers. Your child has done those, and the marks have stopped moving.
- Not a predicted score, and not a ranking. We don’t claim to know what a school will do.
- Not a tutor. It is an hour that tells a tutor, or you, exactly where to aim.
Every count is worked out from your child’s answers, and every quote is checked word for word against what they said.
What a finding actually looks like
Taken from the sample report. One habit, counted across both sittings: the questions where it could have shown, and the ones where it did.
Jumps to a familiar method
Never, with time to think. On five of nine chances once the clock was running. The same child, the same week — which is why one sitting on its own would have missed it entirely.
33%
of his untimed time spent planning
15%
once the clock was running
1
question the clock beat him to
A full report, start to finish, from an invented child. Nothing is held back.
One pack, one price
No subscription. Try the free questions first if you would rather see the level for yourself.
Practice run
Free
Three questions, about ten minutes, to see the level and get used to talking answers through. There is no report for it.
Elite Prep Pack
24 questions£129
- 12 untimed, then 12 timed on another day
- One report covering all 24
- Questions your child has never seen, so a retest still means something
You will set up an account, then start whenever your child is ready.
Questions parents ask
My child is already scoring well. Is there anything to find?+
Sometimes very little, and the report says so plainly rather than inventing a weakness. That is the point of running it: a habit that appears on one question in fifteen is invisible in practice and decisive in an exam.
How hard are the questions, really?+
Harder than any 11+ paper, and deliberately unfamiliar. Several are the kind of question a maths circle would set a Year 7 group. Getting some wrong is expected; we are watching how your child reasons when they cannot simply recall.
Why two sittings rather than one longer one?+
Because the clock changes the child. A child who checks carefully with an hour may stop checking entirely with five minutes. Two sittings also keeps each one to about an hour, which is as long as this kind of thinking can be sustained.
Does my child have to talk?+
Talking gives the richest picture, and questions are answered out loud by default. Typing is available at every step if they prefer, and some children move between the two.
Will this knock their confidence so close to the exam?+
The report is written to be read with your child, not about them. It names what is secure first, quotes them doing it well, and turns each weakness into a question to discuss rather than a verdict.
Can we do it again later?+
Yes. A retest draws on questions your child has never seen, so what you are measuring is what has changed rather than what has been remembered.
What happens to the recording?+
It is turned into text and then deleted. Only the text is kept, for the report. You can see or delete your child’s data at any time.
An hour now, or a guess on exam day
Twenty-four questions, two sittings, one report that tells you exactly where to spend the last few weeks.