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Centre of Evaluation and Monitoring

What is Included in each CEM Mock Exam?

Number of Tests and Subjects:

  • Test 1 (45 mins) divided into three sections – Numerical Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, English Comprehension
  • Test 2 (45 mins) divided into three sections – Numerical Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, English Comprehension
  • Test 3 (15 mins) – Non-Verbal Reasoning

In the online version of this mock, the three sections included in Test 1 and Test 2 will appear as three separate mini-tests so that they can be separately timed online, as with the real paper-based exam. Therefore, it is best the three mini-tests are completed back to back without any breaks as there would be no breaks in a paper exam.

Format

The format of the exam is multiple choice, however, as with the real exam, there are some question types that will not have answer options to choose from and therefore are not strictly multiple choice. However, the answer has to be worked out and marked by either writing a word, letter or number or by marking a line in a box on a separate answer sheet that is marked by OCR.

Feedback Reports

There will be a report for each of the three tests in this mock.

Where there are physical sittings, the comparison data will be available for the cohort for the session your child attends, as well the overall cohort including all other children who attempted the same mock.

  • Percentage score for each test
  • Percentile score for each test
  • Ranking for each test
  • High, low and average scores of the cohort
  • Access to all skipped or incorrect questions and answers
  • For skipped or incorrect questions, the percentage of students who also skipped or got the question wrong

For all tests within the mock session combined:

  • Combined average percentage score
  • Combined average percentile score
  • Combined ranking
  • Combined high, low and average scores
  • Breakdown of all students’ scores
Review Session (where applicable)

Some of our physical sessions for the CEM mocks will have Review Sessions immediately following the mock exam. Our Review Sessions are led by our experienced teachers who will go through the most difficult questions in each paper. They will also provide exam techniques and tips. The reviews are professionally prepared with animated PowerPoint slides illustrating step by step workings, as well as animation software providing a 3-dimensional visual display of solutions to Non-Verbal Reasoning questions.

Review Sessions usually take just over 1 hour. Your child may bring a notebook in order to make any notes during the review if required.

Schools/Regions that use the CEM Test

Since 2023, CEM no longer provide paper based exams for Grammar schools and therefore virtually all Grammars have ceased using CEM. The CEM is now mainly used by independent schools as an online exam known as CEM Select.

GRAMMAR SCHOOLS (FORMERLY USING CEM)

About CEM ®

The CEM has been providing entrance exams for the Independent school sector for many years and started to become more popular with the grammar school sector from 2013 onwards with many regions and schools opting to use the CEM tests in place of the GL Assessment test.

The CEM had built its reputation on profiling of primary pupils’ progress and potential using periodic tests (usually annual) assessing mainly reading and mathematics ability with products such as PIPS (Performance Indicators in Primary Schools) and InCAS which is a “diagnostic, computer-adaptive assessment”.

Traditionally, the CEM has been a proponent of ‘Adaptive Learning’, which in simple terms are interactive computer-based questions where the next question or ‘task’ is based on the response (and sometimes response time) of the previous question or task.

The tests are developed by the CEM based on the requirements from the schools or Local Education Authorities.

Weighting Per Subject

The different components of the tests are weighted depending on the requirements of the individual schools and the subjects they elect to test. Commonly, where all four subjects are tested, the English and Verbal Reasoning sections would be worth 50% with Maths and Non-Verbal Reasoning both at 25% each.

  1. To give equal value to the results of each test, regardless of the number of questions in the test and the time allowed take account of two factors:
  2. Take account of children’s ages when they sit the exam to ensure fairness, and therefore avoid unfair advantage to older children.

The raw scores of each test are age standardised.

Age Standardisation

Standardisation is a statistical process that is designed to

  1. Give equal value to the results of each test, regardless of the number of questions in the test and the time allowed take account of two factors:
  2. Take account of children’s ages when they sit the exam to ensure fairness and therefore avoid unfair advantage to older children.

The raw scores of CEM exams are age standardised to provide a single combined score. This means that two children born in different months but with exactly the same raw percentage score will have different age standardised scores

In the past ...

The Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring was a research group originally based at the University of Durham. The CEM was acquired by Cambridge Assessments and Cambridge University Press and is now part of the Cambridge University.