Scoring of the 11+

Scoring of the 11+ can vary depending on which part of the country you are from. Most areas use a technique called ‘standardised scoring’.

The scoring of the 11+ does vary slightly depending on where you are in the country, and some areas/schools weight some subjects more heavily than others. For example, in Kent, more importance is placed on English and Maths than Verbal Reasoning, but VR still counts towards a pupil’s final mark.

A standardised score is created using a normal distribution with a mean 100 and standard deviation of 15. This means the average score of the cohort/year-group is 100; the bottom 2% score less than 70; the highest 2% score more than 130. The raw pass score, therefore, will vary year to year depending on the ability of the pupils sitting the exam, since the standardised scores are calculated after the exam has been sat the raw pass score will not be known prior to the exam.