Choccy74, it sounds like your DD has a great attitude! I wouldn't do the countdown personally as I think it would increase stress levels. Countdown to Christmas is something nice. The 11+ isn't going to be fun! My DS already feels like his life revolves around it.
I just wish we could get the exam over with now! DS' weakest area is VR because that are so many different question types, some of which he finds easy and others he finds hard. When he did a practice paper, that was the one area he didn't quite finish in the time. Like others, have said, vocabulary is always an issue. We can't expect them to have the same level at 10 or 11 as we do as adults and it's not knowing what words mean that is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for VR. We just do our best to expand his vocabulary - after that it's luck of the draw on the day!
Anyone else planning to do a mock? We have once booked for July. I'm worried it will knock his confidence if it doesn't go well and have already been warning him that they are really hard! His confidence has always been our biggest battle and it's only really as he's progressed through the year and seen that he's actually doing really well that he has started to believe in himself. I've read lots of stories on here about mocks and I'm starting to wonder if anyone actually scores well on them?! It sounds like they are meant to be really hard to encourage people to pay for more tutoring!

With the comprehension our tutor recommends reading the question, then looking at the material and continuing with that. I find otherwise she reads it all once and then guesses

Went to the admissions information morning at Ribston this morning and found it really useful. Just to let you all know CEM are providing an additional 2 hours of familiarisation material which will be going on the grammar school websites which I think will be really useful

That is good news - the sample is such a small one.
And Ribston, I think, are clear at the admissions morning that they strongly advise girls to have practiced some timed tests.
That's much more honest, I think, than just the small sample of questions and the advice to read lots and use maths often.

Interesting...thank you for the info. We are going to Crypt and Pates Open mornings next week, so it’ll be interesting to hear what they say.

We are doing the cgp 10 minute tests and trying to guage how did is doing. In maths she got 8/12 in the time, NVR 23/26 in the time and 15/26 in the time. So about 72% overall. Is this similar to how others are doing?

Yes my DS is getting about that on average in his practice tests. So hard to predict how they will do on the day!

Thanks, good to know. It's the silly mistakes at the moment in the maths we need to work on... And comprehension as she will choose anything other than that to do

My DS is the same but we looked round Pates today, and he’s really motivated now so hopefully he’ll pick up a bit! It’s coming round so fast...!

Brackaboo, that's the sort of score DS just got in his mock. He performed extremely well on NVR, not so well on the comprehension (just over half correct) and maths and VR were quite different scores across the 2 papers. He struggled with time and put random answers for the last few as he knew not to leave any gaps, which obviously pulled down his score. That's the first (and only) mock he's done/ is doing though I gather the company encourages them to do 4 or 5! Overall I think that's a good score and he should be fine for Crypt (his second choice) if he performs like that on the day. But he really wants Pates (which is also our closest and most convenient grammar) and I'm well aware that this wouldn't have been good enough. Whereas there were children in the cohort with really high scores across everything. The child in first place got 90%. I've being trying to find the balance between managing expectations and not making him feel discouraged. I think a comment on the mocks thread put it into perspective for me - he'll get into the school that's right for him and if that's not Pates then it's because he's not quite Pates standard and he'll do well elsewhere (hopefully Crypt!). We also liked Tommy's but he did the taster day at Crypt and that won him over. Very good PR on their part!