The 11+ Jargon Glossary: Every Term Parents Need, Explained

Somewhere between the registration form and the results letter, every 11+ parent runs into a wall of unfamiliar terms — "Standardised Age Score," "adaptive testing," "stanine." None of it is complicated once someone explains it plainly. That's what this page is for: a quick, honest reference you can come back to whenever a new term lands in your inbox.

Where a term has a fuller story — a specific provider, or one of my own teaching frameworks — I've linked through to the full guide.

Scoring & Results

Standardised Age Score (SAS) An age-adjusted score, centred on 100, used by CAT4 and several other providers. Because it accounts for your child's exact age in years and months, it lets you compare fairly against other children the same age, rather than penalising a summer-born child against an older classmate. → Full explanation in my CAT4 guide

National Percentile Rank (NPR) Shows where a child sits compared with others their age, as a percentage. An NPR of 80 means a child scored as well as or better than 80% of their peer group.

Stanine A simple 1–9 band used to summarise a score at a glance, without the false precision of an exact percentage. Useful for a quick read, less useful for fine detail.

Mean CAT4 Score The average of a child's four individual battery scores on the CAT4, giving one overall figure alongside the four separate results.

Age Standardisation The general principle — used by GL Assessment, CAT4 and others — of adjusting a raw score against a child's exact age, so a September-born child isn't unfairly compared against an August-born child almost a full year older.

Test Format & Delivery

Adaptive Testing A test that changes the difficulty of upcoming questions based on how a child answers previous ones. The ISEB Common Pre-Test is the clearest example — if it starts feeling very hard, that's usually a sign your child is doing well, not badly. → More in my Verbal Reasoning "Time Thieves" guide

Non-Adaptive Testing A fixed-sequence test where every child sees a broadly similar set of questions, regardless of performance. CAT4 and much of GL Assessment work this way — don't assume "digital" automatically means "adaptive."

Battery GL's term for a distinct section of a test measuring one type of reasoning — Verbal, Non-Verbal, Quantitative, or Spatial Ability on the CAT4, for example. Each battery is usually made up of two shorter subtests.

Module Similar concept to a battery, more commonly used by Cambridge Select Insight — an individually timed section a child cannot return to once the timer ends. → Full explanation in my Cambridge Select Insight guide

Providers & Test Names

GL Assessment The most widely used 11+ provider across England and Northern Ireland, historically paper-based multiple choice, though some regions now offer a digital option too. → Full GL Assessment guide

ISEB Common Pre-Test An online, adaptive test used by the majority of independent schools, sat once and shared across every school a family applies to.

CAT4 (Cognitive Abilities Test) A reasoning-based assessment, not a curriculum test — used more often for in-school benchmarking than as a stand-alone entrance exam, though some independent schools do use it as part of admissions. → Full CAT4 guide

Cambridge Select Insight (formerly CEM Select) A computer-based test used by many independent senior schools, built around strict timing and unusual digital question formats like drag-and-drop. → Full Cambridge Select Insight guide

Quest Assessments A newer provider used by a growing number of both independent and state grammar schools — delivered on paper or digitally depending on the school, so never assume the format from the name alone.

FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) A newer provider now used by several state grammar consortiums, including Gloucestershire and Trafford from 2028 entry — content and paper count can vary meaningfully between FSCE schools. → More in my Paper vs Digital guide

CSSE (Consortium of Selective Schools in Essex) Sets its own bespoke, paper-based papers rather than using GL, ISEB or any other named provider.

AAT (Adaptive Admissions Test) GL Assessment's own online, adaptive test, used by a number of independent schools including Brentwood School — worth checking the current subject scope directly, as some schools have narrowed which sections they use from year to year.

Prep Platforms

A separate category from the exam providers above — these are the commercial tools families use at home to practise, not the exam boards themselves. → Full platform comparison

Atom Learning An online adaptive practice platform, and also the developer of the Quest Assessments exam itself — covers GL, ISEB, Quest and CEM-style preparation.

Bond Online Premium (powered by CENTURY) The digital evolution of the classic Bond 11+ book series, now built on CENTURY Tech's AI engine. The Premium Plus tier is currently the only 11+ prep platform with ISEB-endorsed content.

BOFA (Baines Online Formative Assessment) An adaptive practice platform built around a "Test-Teach-Retest" cycle, also offering standalone Mock Tests for the ISEB Common Pre-Test and the London 11+ Consortium.

Formative Assessment An assessment used to monitor and guide ongoing learning — as opposed to a summative assessment, which measures final achievement. BOFA's core teaching model is built around this cycle.

David Bell Education Frameworks

A handful of terms you'll only find here — the frameworks I've built specifically to make exam technique concrete and teachable.

The Three-Pass Rule My structured approach to paper-based exam timing: sweep for easy marks first, return for the "thinkers," then attempt the hardest questions last. → Full guide

The 60-Second Hard Stop The digital-exam equivalent of the Three-Pass Rule — since forward-only tests don't allow skipping, this teaches a child exactly when to cut their losses and move on. → Full guide

MAGIC PENS!™ My ten-point framework for 11+ creative writing, covering the literary techniques examiners consistently reward. → Full guide

Time Thieves My term for the specific question types designed to eat disproportionate amounts of exam time relative to their mark value — and the psychological toolkit for spotting and handling them. → Full guide

The 6-Week Masterplan My structured programme bridging core-skills consolidation into full exam-day stamina, used across every subject in the run-up to the 11+.