Living Together

For several days, debate has raged over the complexity of last week's Year 6 Sats reading paper. Some of The Children who took it were reportedly in tears afterwards, while the government said that

Many parents and teachers complained that it was simply too difficult for pupils to complete in the required hour, with one head teacher saying it had left her school's " capable" readers " broken".

The Test Paper , which The Department For Education insists was " rigorously trialled"

So how tough is it exactly?

The marking scheme, reveals that 36 of the 38 questions were designed to test three specific Reading Skills . Pupils who could demonstrate them had the chance to earn a total possible score of 50, But analysis suggests high scores were only possible for those who showed a fourth ability.

Whatever your age, you can test yourself below and judge whether these skills are a fair expectation for an 11-year-old.

Possibly The Most straightforward questions were those that offered 16 marks for answers where the required skill was to " retrieve and record information or identify key details".

For some questions it was simply a case of finding the correct sentence in a Long passage of text and repeating The Information , as in these two examples:

Q: The Congress Avenue Bridge attracts bats to Austin. What else attracts bats to Texas?

Q: According to Harriet, why did Some People in Austin dislike bats? Write two reasons.

Slightly more challenging questions required pupils to piece together the relevant information from two different parts of the text such as these two examples:

Q: How far from home was Innis when he first heard The Wolf howl?

Q: In which American state is The Congress Avenue Bridge found?

Nine points were on offer for questions that tested how pupils actually understood words and phrases that were being used. In this case, it was the extent of pupils' general vocabulary that was being tested, such as in these examples:

Q: Find and copy one word which means 'a group of bats Living Together '.

Q: Harriet describes bats as Vulnerable . Which of The Following [four terms] is closest in meaning to Vulnerable - Foolish , At Risk , frightening or tormented?

Q: What does pressed on mean in the text?

Q: Which of The Following [words] is closest in meaning to unmistakable - Unlikely , unfamiliar, possible or definite?

The highest number of marks - 23 - was on offer for questions that the marking guide said were designed to show pupils could " make inferences from the text or explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text". This is the hardest reading skill and sometimes requires showing a little life knowledge or " reading between the lines" rather than literally what it says on the page.

These Three examples really do require The Reader to put themselves in The Position of the character:

Q: How can you tell Priya was nervous? Write two ways.

Q: Why did Priya find it surprising to hear two vehicles drive by?

Q: How can you tell that the moonlight was very bright?

And finally these two questions would be The Most likely to trip up an inexperienced reader, as the answers are not actually spelled out in the accompanying text at all, no matter how hard you look. It relies on an average 11-year-old Understanding that " it hit her" is an abstract statement rather than a literal description, and explaining how someone would react if They were woken up in The Middle of the night

Q: What is " it"?

" You'd better not be making this up. "

Q: Why does Abby say this to Priya?

The fourth skill is one that was not specifically marked, But close analysis of The Paper reveals how vital it would have been for any pupil.

The examples reproduced above were among 38 questions that had to be answered in an hour to earn 50 points - But it is important to stress that the Sats test was not sliced and diced like we have done above.

The pupils were given three passages of text which were respectively 623, 817 and 612 words Long - or 2,052 words in total. The Department For Education does not list an expected reading speed for an average 11-year-old, But US educational studies roughly suggest 150 words per minute is a good aim for silent reading at that age. So reading those passages just once would take up 14 minutes.

The 38 questions contain another 1,142 words, and every wise student remembers the advice to read every question twice, so that accounts for another 15 Minutes .

So look at those questions above in a fresh light. Once pupils had absorbed each individual question, They had an average of 49 seconds per question to scan back through the relevant passage, Work Out their answer and write it down.

By comparison, Last Year 's Sats reading test offered three passages with a total word count of 1,563 words and just 35 questions - and pupils then were given the same time of One Hour to complete The Test . So, a year ago, pupils had the comparative luxury of a minute on average to find and record each answer.

Source of news: bbc.com