English

Overview:  There are two separate sections: comprehension and grammar. The  comprehension section usually consists of three or four short texts, each followed by some questions. The grammar section is likely to include spelling, punctuation, complete the sentence exercises and scrambled sentences where the extra word has to be identified.

See below for an overview with example questions and scroll down for helpful worksheets which we will use for targeted practice.

Reading  fluency and the building of a rich vocabulary are areas of huge importance. See our slides full of tips below:

'Find the mistake' exercises: here are two worksheets for the 'find the mistake' exercise with the answer sheets below so you can help your boy practise if you wish.

Scrambled sentences: here are some scrambled sentences to have a go at.

Homophones practice: below is a 'heap of homophones' which often come up on the pre-test. Boys will need to know these very well.

Improving reading speed exercises: here are 15 short 30 second reading paragraphs from a book called Stride Ahead.  These are deliberately written to be hard to predict what it will say, so you have to read exactly what it says on the page; the idea is to do the paragraphs several times over to achieve perfect accuracy and fluency.