CEM

The Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring

The CEM exam was made by the University of Durham's centre for evaluation and monitoring. It was introduced in 1999 as there were concerns about over coaching for the GL Assessment. The exam board was developed with the aim of creating a fairer assessment for the 11 plus questions and exam.

From the CEM Website:

‘Since 1999 CEM has developed assessments with the aim of creating a fair selection process and have achieved this by drawing from research identifying the best predictors of later achievement.

The tests measure verbal, numerical and non-verbal skills and are available as paper and computer-based services to schools, trusts and authorities, for children predominantly of ages 10 to 11 years.

CEM strives to make the selection process fair for all candidates with assessments designed to enable all children to demonstrate their academic potential without excessive preparation. In order to maintain the fairness of the tests, CEM does not provide any commercially available practice materials.’

CEM like to see themselves as not giving pupils any practice materials to work with. However, it is so widely known and practice material for the exams is so widely available that this isn’t really the case.

CEM tests only Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. However, it is important to consider that some schools may have their own English exams in addition to this. The best way to check on this would be to get into contact with the school. You can find these contact details on our list of grammar schools.

CEM do try and vary the question types that they ask from time to time, so it is very difficult to predict what will come up on the exam. The purpose of this is to make it more difficult to prepare for. 

Is GL Assessment any different to CEM?

What different exam boards are there?

Does my prospective school use CEM?