Essex Eleven Plus English

Visuteach provides 11 plus English practice papers for Essex CSSE (Consortium for Selective Schools in Essex) type 11 plus English tests.

Our practice papers are available for immediate download on our 11 Plus Products page.

To open a free sample paper for these tests, click on the purple underlined link in the Sample Paper column below. To download the free sample paper, right-click on the purple underlined link and choose 'Save Target As' from the pop-up menu.

Essex 11 Plus CSSE Style English Practice Papers

Our Essex eleven plus English practice papers are pdf files that follow the format of the CSSE (Consortium for Selective Schools in Essex) test. The test consists of an English comprehension passage and questions which test for comprehension, punctuation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Our Essex eleven plus English tests are 40 minute standard format tests which are useful for pupils preparing for the Essex 11-plus. They can also be used by pupils preparing for 11-plus English comprehension tests elsewhere in the country.

Essex 11 Plus English - New 2010 Format

Essex introduced a new format English test in 2010. This new test consists of 20 standard format questions, whereas the previous test consisted of 9 standard format questions.  The new test has less of an emphasis on comprehension and vocabulary, and a greater emphasis on punctuation. It also tests for spelling, grammar and literary devices - areas which were not examined in the previous tests. Each new 2010 format Essex English paper consists of one comprehension passage of between 800-1000 words and 20 questions on this passage. The questions test for comprehension, punctuation, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and literary devices.

Essex 11 Plus English - Old Pre-2010 Format

The pre-2010 format Essex 11 plus English test consists of an English comprehension passage and questions which test for comprehension, punctuation and vocabulary. Comprehension makes up between 60% to 68% of the test, vocabulary between 20% to 24% and punctuation between 12% to 16%. Each pre-2010 format Essex English paper consists of one comprehension passage of between 800-1000 words and 7 comprehension questions on this passage, as well as one vocabulary question (which tests 10 or 12 words), and one grammar question (which tests for 6 or 8 errors).

We are still offering our old pre-2010 Essex English tests for sale because we cannot be sure that future Essex English tests will not revert to the old format, which was used for many years. The old format also offers good practice on comprehension, vocabulary and punctuation.

The table below shows the approximate percentage of marks awarded for comprehension, punctuation, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and identification of literary devices in the new format and old format Essex English 11 plus tests.

From the table, you can see that comprehension has declined in importance, but still makes up the majority of the test. Punctuation has increased in importance, and vocabulary has decreased in importance. Spelling now earns over one fifth of the marks available. Grammar questions and the identification of literary devices and techniques make up the remainder of the marks. Spelling, grammar and literary devices are all new topics examined in the new 2010 format test, and were not examined in the old pre-2010 format test.

The grammar questions involve the classification of a noun or nouns as any of the following:

The literary device and literary technique questions involve the identification of any of the following literary devices within the comprehension passage:

Essex 11 plus English papers are quite difficult. The comprehension passages and the vocabulary are difficult. In the past,
comprehension passages have been taken from authors such as Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Graham Greene. Our Essex English papers contain comprehension passages by Samuel Smiles, George Eliot, Jerome K. Jerome, Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens among others.

Our free sample paper is in the style of the old pre-2010 format and contains 5 questions (as opposed to the full 9). The vocabulary question tests 8 words (as opposed to the full 10 or 12). The comprehension passage in the sample test is just over 500 words in length, whereas the comprehension passage in the full product is between 800-1000 words in length.

The English practice papers are in pdf format (and can be opened using Adobe Reader, which can de downloaded for free at 

http://get.adobe.com/reader .)

You can purchase and download our Essex 11-plus English practice papers on our 11 Plus Products page