Which are THE BEST practice tests to pass the ISEB pretests?

THE BEST ISEB pre-test practice can be bought below as individual practice pre-tests

or a cheaper test multipack

BUY single ISEB practice test SKILLS ISEB practice

* * These practice tests are the closest to the original ISEB pre-tests* *

Buy ISEB Maths, ISEB English, ISEB verbal reasoning, ISEB spatial:

BUY Maths ISEB prep BUY English ISEB test practice

BUY ISEB verbal reasoning BUY ISEB spatial test practice

click here for the recommended ISEB VIDEO COURSE.

Our top four tips for passing ISEB tests

11 plus independent school test practice , private school ISEB Pre-Tests Guide for parents and past papers ISEB pre-tests.

REMEMBER you need to track your ISEB pretest progress each week for maximum benefit and to keep yourself motivated.
Try our recommended ISEB test-taking techniques.
Find our which ISEB test sections are most difficult for you to answer correctly.
To demonstrate your true UKiSET potential you need to practice until you can answer all types of UKiSET question correctly and quickly.
Try to teach yourself the most effective ISEB pretest strategies for mastering your most challenging ISEB pretest items.
Learn what works best for you to pass the most difficult ISEB pretest question types.

What are the ISEB Common Entrance Pre-tests?

You can find more details about the ISEB Common Entrance pre-tests background at these links:

11 plus pre-tests practice and private school ISEB Pre-Tests Guide for parents
ISEB practice pre-test papers and past papers ISEB pre-tests.

What is the Maths ISEB pre-test content?

These contain:

Algebra
Angles & Degrees
BODMAS
Estimation, Rounding & Place Value
Factors & Multiples
Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
Measurements
Money
Operations
Perimeter, Area & Volume
Position & Direction
Properties of Shapes
Ratio & Proportion
Reflection, Rotations & Symmetry
Sequences
Special Numbers
Speed, Distance & Time
Statistics

The skills multipack contains the full set of:

NEW ISEB Pretest English – Reading Comprehension
ISEB Pretest English – Cloze Sentences
NEW ISEB Pretest English – Shuffled Sentences
ISEB Pretest English – SPAG
NEW ISEB Pretest Mathematics
ISEB Pretest 2D Non-Verbal Reasoning
NEW ISEB Pretest Spatial Reasoning
ISEB Pretest Verbal Reasoning

Our top passing ISEB pre-tests tips, incl ISEB’s own practice pre-tests

Your first step is always to check which private school entry test your chosen schools use. In this case that the ISEB Common Pre-test as part of the private school’s entry requirements. This is increasingly the case. Parents can search the ISC independent schools list to find more info on their specific private school’s entry requirements.
The ISEB common pre-tests introductory website. This demonstrates the look and feel of the tests.
ISEB pre-tests practice test is worth reviewing as your next step. This will familiarise your child with the ISEB sub-test formats.

Download ISEB pretests introductory guide ISEB Pre Tests Parents Guide.

What is the ISEB Pre-Test?

This guest tutor post was written by Juliet Rolls – Founder of Cambridge Academic Tuition .

In addition to preparing students for the ISEB pre-test, she manages teachers/tutors for all academic subjects to students from ages 3 to 18. All lessons are one to one and online and all teachers are UK qualified teachers.

We teach students from all around the world, many of whom have English as an additional language. Our recent successes include places at:

At some of the most selective schools in the UK and globally, including:
Eton, Harrow, Westminster, St Paul’s Boys’ School, St Paul’s Girls’ School, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Winchester, Hampton, Tonbridge, Dulwich College and King’s College to name a few.

We prepare students for:

Entry at 4+, 7+, 8+, 10+, 11+, 13+ and 16+.
GCSE/IGCSE and A-Level/IB exams.

Our students have often achieved the highest grade possible and we also have a fantastic record of students being offered academic scholarships.

Schools which use the ISEB Pre-Test

Here is a useful list of schools using ISEB pre-tests 2022. Using the code CAMBRIDGE you can benefit from up to 30% off your first payment which can be for an entire year. Most of my students sign up for the Exam Prep Plus package which allows unlimited mock tests.To find out more visit Cambridge Academic Tuition.

Timings for the ISEB pre-tests

The new timings of the tests are:

Mathematics 40 minutes

English 40 minutes

Non-Verbal Reasoning (NVR) 30 minutes

Verbal Reasoning (VR) 25 minutes

Total length 2 hours and 15 minutes

ISEB Pre-tests’ question types

The types of questions that could now appear now include:

Mathematics content for the ISEB pre-tests

Number and place value
Calculations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)
Fractions, decimals and percentages
Measure
Geometry
Statistics

There are likely to be some problem solving questions in addition to arithmetic and problems involving more than one area.

English content for the ISEB pre-tests

Reading comprehension – instead of one long passage which was previously the case, there are now 2 or 3 shorter passages. You do not need to click from page to page any more but can scroll through the text.
Grammar – this includes:

Cloze sentences – you need to select the right word to complete the sentence.
Shuffled sentences – you need to rearrange words to form a sentence and may be asked to select the extra word that is not needed. This question type was previously in VR.
Spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary.

Non-Verbal Reasoning content for the ISEB pre-tests

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Similarities and differences
Codes
Complete the diagram

Spatial Reasoning

3D visualisation
2D manipulation

Verbal Reasoning content for the ISEB pre-tests

Comprehension
Reasoning
Logic

For VR vocabulary and spelling are very important. Number related questions have now been removed from the VR test.

What are the key ISEB pre-tests’ features

Taken in Year 6/7; between October and June.
Only taken once in each academic year. Either on two separate days or all on the same day.
The ISEB 2022 remains an online, adaptive test.
Once you have submitted your answer you cannot go back and change it or check through your answers at the end. Therefore, you will not find out if the answer you selected is right or wrong.
There is a timer and dots at the bottom of the screen so that you can see your progress in the test.
All questions are multiple choice and adaptive.
The 2022 ISEB pre-test material covers up to the end of the Year 5 curriculum. Although, the higher level questions’ content goes beyond this.
Overseas students, with English as a Foreign Language, can take their ISEB 2022 test with a bilingual dictionary

Other key changes to the ISEB Common Pretest (CPT)?

The new test is powered by a company called Century Tech, whose software is being used to register candidates, deliver the test and provide results. Hence, the layout of the test screen has changed significantly. You can see how these features work on the official ISEB portal.
If your child qualifies for 25% extra time, the timings will be as follows:

English – 50 minutes

Mathematics – 50 minutes

Verbal Reasoning – 31.25 minutes

Non-Verbal Reasoning – 37.5 minutes

Our new practice tests match these new timings exactly. There is also an option to take each section of the test with extra time. However, we only recommend choosing this option if you are sure your child will qualify for this.

What is the ISEB PRETEST REGISTRATION process?

The process to register your child has changed. Previously, they would be registered via their school. Each child must now be registered via a parent or guardian ISEB have supplied lots of handy information and guidance on how to register so the process is relatively straightforward.

The new test will contain no Sample or Practice questions. In the older version of the test, some of the modules included these within the timed portion of the assessment. In the new test, there will be general instructions provided and then the test will begin right away, with every question counting towards your child’s score.

NEW ENGLISH ISEB PRETEST

The structure of the English module has changed. Previously, 50% of the marks were allocated for Reading Comprehension, 25% for Sentence Completion and 25% for Spelling & Punctuation.
Now, about half of the marks are allocated for Reading Comprehension and half of the marks are allocated to Grammar.
The new ISEB Grammar section covers three topics in rotation: Cloze Sentences, Shuffled Sentences and SPAG, each with a roughly equal weighting.
The first section of the test covers Reading Comprehension. In the old version of the ISEB Pretest, there was just one longer passage, either fiction or nonfiction. In the new test format, there will be multiple smaller passages of 300-500 words each. The passages could be fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
Whereas, in the old format, the passage was divided into smaller sections on the left hand side of the page. Students needed to click numbered buttons to navigate between the questions. In the new format, the passage is in the centre of the page and students may need to scroll up and down to view the text and the questions underneath.
The second part of the test is called Grammar. It consists of three types of questions: Cloze Sentences, Shuffled Sentences and SPAG. Cloze Sentences is similar to the Sentence Completion question type in the old version of the ISEB Pretest.
The second type of question is Shuffled Sentences. This is a brand new question type. Below is an example WITH the instruction wording that will be used.
The third type of question is SPAG, which is an abbreviation of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar.

NEW MATHEMATICS ISEB PRETEST FORMAT

Maths is changING the least compared to the older format of the test. You can expect the same topics to be covered with perhaps fewer questions that include tables/diagrams.

VERBAL REASONING changes ISEB PRETESTS

In the older ISEB, certain questions required two answers to be selected. For example, questions that required selecting two synonyms. In the new version of the test, each question has one answer only. You can still expect synonym based questions but the wording and presentation will be as the below example:
A number of new question types could feature in the new ISEB Pretest. These include Move Two Letters, Missing Letters, Odd One OUt, Connected Words and Related Words.

ISEB NON-VERBAL REASONING CHANGES to SPATIAL REASONING

The biggest change is the introduction of Spatial Reasoning question types. These did not previously feature in the ISEB Pretest. We’ve covered all the key Spatial Reasoning question types across our new ISEB range. This question type is called Combining Shapes.

Despite the introduction of Spatial Reasoning, 2D Non-Verbal Reasoning questions will still account for about half the marks in the Non-Verbal Reasoning section. We’ve made sure to cover all the possibilities across our practice tests. For example, here is an

Example Figure Matrices question

THE old test format included fewer variants in the actual exam but a greater number of questions for each of these variants. In the new test, you can expect more variants to feature but a smaller number of questions per variant.

Preparation Resources for the ISEB Pre-Tests

GENERAL ISEB CHANGES

1) The previous test was created by a company called GL Assessment. The new test is powered by a company called Century Tech, whose software is being used to register candidates, deliver the test and provide results.

The old software was quite outdated and clunky and the new test is a lot more flexible and slick. Overall, this is a positive change that improves the test taking process.

2) Linked to the above change, the layout of the test screen has changed significantly. There are now a number of new accessibility features available for candidates. These include the ability to select coloured overlays for better readability and to increase or decrease the text size.

You can see how these features work on the official ISEB Pretest Walkthrough here.

We also have all these features in our new practice tests as you can see in the top menu of the screenshot below from NEW ISEB Pretest Practice Test 1 👇

NEW ISEB Pretest exam layout

Students can therefore get used to adjusting the settings ahead of time so they know what works best for them. We highly recommend working this out beforehand so your child is not spending precious time during the test adjusting the settings.

3) The timer will remain at the top of the screen but there is an option to hide it if your child finds it distracting.

The progress bar has been moved from the bottom of the screen to the top and can also be hidden.

4) The timings of the individual modules have changed. The new timings are as follows:

◘ English – 40 minutes (previously 25 minutes)

◘ Mathematics – 40 minutes (previously 50 minutes)

◘ Verbal Reasoning – 25 minutes (previously 36 minutes)

◘ Non-Verbal Reasoning – 30 minutes (previously 32 minutes)

The total test time is 2 hours and 15 minutes. The modules do not all need to be taken together. If your child is at a prep school, they will most likely split the modules up over 2 to 4 days. If your child is taking the test at another test centre or at their target school, you should reach out to them to find out how the test will be administered.

If your child qualifies for 25% extra time, the timings will be as follows:

➢ English – 50 minutes

➢ Mathematics – 50 minutes

➢ Verbal Reasoning – 31.25 minutes

➢ Non-Verbal Reasoning – 37.5 minutes ‘

Important Updates for the ISEB Test

Registration Process Changes: The way you register your child for the ISEB test has been updated. In the past, registrations were handled through schools. Now, each child must be registered by a parent or guardian. You can do this through the Guardian Portal [here]. ISEB has provided helpful information and guidance to make the registration process straightforward.
Verbal Reasoning Changes: In the previous version of the ISEB Pretest, some questions in the Verbal Reasoning section required students to select two answers. In the new version, students will only need to choose one answer for each question. More details can be found in the Verbal Reasoning section below.
Test Format: The new test will not include any sample or practice questions. Unlike the old version, where some modules contained practice questions within the timed assessment, the new format will provide general instructions and then begin the test immediately. Every question will contribute to your child’s overall score.

English Module Updates

Structure Changes: The English module has undergone a significant change. Previously, 50% of the marks came from Reading Comprehension, with 25% for Sentence Completion and 25% for Spelling & Punctuation.

In the new test format, the module consists of two sections: Section 1 focuses on Reading Comprehension, while Section 2 is dedicated to Grammar. The Grammar section will include questions on three topics: Cloze Sentences, Shuffled Sentences, and SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar).

Reading Comprehension Details: In the new format, the Reading Comprehension section will feature multiple shorter passages, each ranging from 300 to 500 words. These passages may be fiction, non-fiction, or poetry.

In the old format, students navigated a single longer passage divided into smaller sections using numbered buttons on the left side of the page.

Important Information for the ISEB Test

Please note that complex grammatical terms, such as “fronted adverbials,” will not be included in the ISEB Pretest. Many of you have reached out with questions about this, as these topics may be covered by another publisher. We recommend not spending time on these areas, as they won’t appear on the test and could create unnecessary stress for your child.

Mathematics Section

The content of the Mathematics section will remain mostly unchanged compared to the previous format. You can expect the same topics to be covered, although there may be fewer questions involving tables or diagrams.

VERBAL REASONING section

12) In the older version of the test, certain questions required two answers to be selected. For example, questions that required selecting two synonyms. In the new version of the test, each question has one answer only. You can still expect synonym based questions

Key Updates for the ISEB Test

Verbal Reasoning Changes: The new Verbal Reasoning section will not include any number or code-based questions. In the previous test, there were questions on Number Sequences and Letter Codes. The focus of the new test will be entirely on word and letter-based questions.
New Question Types: The ISEB Pretest may include several new question types, such as Move Two Letters, Missing Letters, Odd One Out, Connected Words, and Related Words. These have been included in our ISEB Pretest Practice Tests and our Verbal Reasoning resources.

Non-Verbal Reasoning Updates

Introduction of Spatial Reasoning: A significant change in the Non-Verbal Reasoning section is the addition of Spatial Reasoning question types, which were not included in previous versions of the ISEB Pretest. Our new ISEB resources cover all known Spatial Reasoning question type.

16. Despite the introduction of Spatial Reasoning, 2D Non-Verbal Reasoning questions will still account for about half the marks in the Non-Verbal Reasoning section. We’ve made sure to cover all the known possibilities across our practice tests.

17) In the older version of the test, the questions were at the top of the screen with answer options A-E under each diagram.

In the new test format, the questions are in the centre of the screen and the answer options are formed from the diagrams themselves, so your child needs to click on the correct diagram rather than the letters A-E.

18) The old test format included fewer variants in the actual exam but a greater number of questions for each of these variants. In the new test, you can expect more variants to feature but a smaller number of questions per variant.

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