The CSSE 11+ exam covers ten grammar schools in the Essex area, most of which hold places for out-of-catchment students.
The CSSE exam format has remained the same for a number of years and practice papers are often available, making it one of the most predictable of the 11+ exams.
Whilst predictable, the exam is still extremely tough, especially if you’re hoping for an out-of-catchment place.
Follow our guide to the CSSE 11+ exam for a breakdown on the topics tested and the materials we recommend for your child.
Maths Paper – worth 50% of marks
English Paper – worth 50% of marks
Maths Paper – 60 minutes
English Paper – 60 minutes + 10 minutes reading time
Colchester County High School for Girls
Colchester Royal Grammar School
King Edward VI Grammar School
Shoeburyness High School
Southend High School for Boys
Southend High School for Girls
St. Bernard’s High School for Girls
St. Thomas More High School for Boys
Westcliff High School for Boys
Westcliff High School for Girls
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Marks: 60
Candidates are given 10 minutes of compulsory reading time at the beginning of the English paper. After this, they have 1 hour to complete the remainder of the paper as they wish.
CSSE’s advised timings are below:
The comprehension paper contains a mixture of multiple-choice and open-answer questions that test comprehension, vocabulary, and punctuation and grammar.
The 40 marks are usually distributed as follows:
The CSSE paper usually has a few 1- or 2-mark, multiple-choice questions that test retrieval and deduction skills, e.g. “How are Philip and Ambrose related to each other?”, “What did Ambrose do when he caught Philip’s nurse smacking him with a hairbrush?”
The open-answer comprehension questions tend to test children’s inferencing skills and their ability to support their answers with evidence from the passage.
Children need to be comfortable with providing (succinct) quotations from the passage and justifying their reasoning.
CSSE consistently dedicates a quarter of the comprehension paper to synonym questions, e.g. “Look in lines 3 – 6 to find a synonym for ‘peculiar’.”
These questions are particularly challenging as children have a large selection of possible answers to choose from. Children need to have a broad vocabulary in order to answer these questions and also be able to guess the meaning of a word using the context they find it in.
Typically, one or two high-mark questions will ask children to select words or phrases that support a particular point, e.g. “Pick four phrases or words which show how much Philip dislikes school” or “Select four words or short phrases that give the idea that this is a ghost story”.
Children may also be asked to define a word or explain their choice of word(s) as part of the question.
These questions can be worth anything from 2 to 8 marks each, depending on how much evidence is required.
Punctuation and grammar may be tested by asking children to re-write a couple of sentences, adding the correct punctuation and grammar to them.
Children could also be given a 1- or 2-mark question asking them to identify the punctuation used.
CSSE comprehension passages tend to be from very advanced texts, usually from older books. There have, however, been some occasions on which they have used a more modern text (e.g. the 2010 book, “Never Let Me Go”, was used in the 2017 exam).
The exam has even featured a very challenging text from “Tess of the d’Ubervilles”, which is one of the books on the A-level English syllabus!
The CSSE examiners seem to choose deliberately obscure or adult texts that children are unlikely to have read. It is, therefore, unlikely that reading well-known classic books will be particularly advantageous.
Even if your child has read the book that’s used in the exam, the style of the CSSE questions means this is unlikely to confer any real benefits when answering the questions. In fact, it could cause students to be complacent and, therefore, not read the extract properly. As such, please do not feel that your child must read a wide range of classic texts in preparation for this exam.
Your child should, however, become very familiar with classic texts through comprehension practice. This work will help to familiarise your child with the language typically used in such passages.
20 minutes (recommended)
Two creative writing tasks, each approximately 6 to 7 sentences long. Candidates must complete both tasks.
Candidates are assessed on “accuracy, spelling, punctuation, the quality of writing and originality”.
Helpfully, CSSE provides their creative writing assessment criteria on their website. Download a copy here.
The CSSE creative writing questions often ask children to draw from real life experiences (e.g. describe your best friend) or to give their opinion (e.g. what’s your favourite part of the school day?). Given how little time they have to answer, children will need to be informative and to the point whilst writing powerful descriptions and including creative flourishes.
It should be noted that the official CSSE mark scheme emphasises that children must use ambitious vocabulary correctly, avoiding “overly ornate vocabulary”. Your vocabulary work with your child should, therefore, include using words in sentences to ensure your child is able to use vocabulary in a way that is natural and appropriate for the context.
Tip: When preparing for this exam, remind your child that their description doesn’t have to be 100% true; he/she can exaggerate a little if it makes their writing more exciting.
10 minutes (recommended)
5 verbal reasoning-style questions
Questions usually involve inserting a letter (or two) to complete a word,
e.g. “Select two consecutive letters from the alphabet to complete the following word: _ilen_”
or “Select one letter to complete both words:
RI(_)(_)LE : (_)ARSNI(_)”
The Applied Reasoning questions tend to test a combination of vocabulary and spelling.
Many children will be capable of completing the five Applied Reasoning questions in less than 10 minutes. The remaining time can, therefore, be spent on other areas.
Total Time: 1 hour
Total Marks Available: 60
*This list is not exhaustive.
Note: even if you’re short of time before the exam, we do not recommend diving in with the 10-11 versions of the books below. Work up to these gradually.
Completing the Bond 10-11 books is unnecessary for most 11+ exams, however, we strongly recommend them for CSSE candidates as they are of a similar level of difficulty.
Although the CEM exam is now largely defunct, these books provide the depth of vocabulary practice required for the CSSE exam. They also contain several questions with a similar format to CSSE’s Applied Reasoning questions.
When working through this book, be sure to go through complex vocabulary with your child regularly.
Note: these books are tough, so go down an age band when purchasing.
Whether or not your child is an avid reader, audiobooks can be used to introduce your child to an even wider range of stories, particularly the classics. Listening to the narration and sound effects can also deepen your child’s understanding of older texts as they have more contextual clues to draw from.
Providing much more than just teaching definitions, Wordier’s vocabulary classes ensure children are confident in using words in sentences and are familiar with their synonyms.
Through weekly live classes, experienced English tutors give feedback on children’s sentences, answer questions and correct misconceptions to ensure that children can apply their new knowledge correctly.
These classes are perfect to support all three sections of the CSSE English paper. Start early sessions early in your 11+ journey (preferably in Year 4), so your child has time to cover as many words as possible.
Designed specifically for the 11+, these illustrated flashcards cards feature a plethora of challenging words that are commonly featured in comprehension exams, including CSSE.
Cards also feature close synonyms of the words featured, which makes them ideal support for the CSSE comprehension paper.
Selected cards also feature collocations (word pairings), which help your child to use words properly in sentences. As a result, this set can also be used to develop your child’s creative writing skills. You can even use the pictures on the cards as creative writing prompts for your child.
In addition to the aforementioned vocabulary tools, we also recommend:
This book is jam-packed with short and unusual creative writing prompts, many of which are similar in style to the CSSE questions. Try to complete a couple of tasks a week to get your child into the habit of thinking on their feet.
Example task:
If you were to build a time capsule of all of your favourite things, what would you put in it, and why?
These books provide plenty of questions that are similar in style to the questions in the Applied Reasoning section. When using these books, don’t forget to go through any corrections and check whether your child knows the meanings of all the words in the question.
Year 4 or early Year 5 children should complete the 8-9 version of these books before starting the 9-10.
Up to a point, the Bond Assessment Papers and CGP 10-minute Tests will help you to lay a good foundation of knowledge for your child. There will come a point, however, where you’ll need to go beyond these core materials in order to sufficiently prepare your child for the demands of the CSSE exam. We recommend the below materials when you reach this point.
These papers will be good practice for Year 5s that have already completed the Bond 9-10 Assessment Papers. This book includes several topics that are tested in the CSSE exam, such as the nth term, graphs and angles.
These challenging papers provide word problems that are similar in style to those found in the CSSE papers. This book contains some of the most challenging 11+ maths questions on the market, so don’t worry if you see a dramatic drop in your child’s scores once they start it.
If you’d like to warm up to this book, there’s a similar 9-10 book that you can try – https://amzn.to/3YjozJW.
