The number on your results email is not the number of questions your child got right. It has been through two adjustments first, and the raw marks are never released.
This page is about how the 11+ is marked and how the score is calculated. If what you want is which score gets a child in, that is our guide to the qualifying and priority scores.
What actually gets marked
Only the answer sheet. Nothing a child writes in the question booklet is seen by anyone.
That matters more than it sounds. Working out a question correctly in the margin and then failing to transfer the answer scores nothing, and it is one of the most common ways careful children lose marks. See our guide to the answer sheet.
The sheet is multiple choice and machine readable, which is why the instructions insist on a firm line through the box and on rubbing out rather than crossing out. A half-erased mark can be read as a second answer, and a question with two answers scores zero.
How the score is calculated
Four stages, in order:
- Raw marks. The number of correct answers in each section. Never published.
- Section weighting. Per the partnership entrance test page, English and verbal reasoning together carry 50%, maths 25% and non-verbal reasoning 25%. So a mark in English is worth more to the total than a mark in maths.
- Age standardisation. Adjusted for the month your child was born in.
- A standardised score, reported on a scale with a median of 200.
Stage two is the one families act on least. If English and verbal reasoning are half the marks, they deserve half the preparation, and in most households they get far less than maths because maths feels easier to measure.
The age standardisation process
Children in a single school year can be almost twelve months apart. A child born in August sits the same paper as a child born the previous September, having had a year less of everything.
Age standardisation corrects for that. Each child's raw performance is compared against others born in the same month, so a September-born child needs more raw marks than an August-born child to reach the same standardised score.
Two things worth being clear about:
- It adjusts for age and nothing else. Not school type, not tutoring, not pupil premium.
- The adjustment is not published. No table exists showing how many marks a given birth month is worth, so nobody can calculate it for you.
See our guide to summer-born children and age standardisation.
Why you never see raw marks
the King Edward VI Foundation states that it does not release raw scores or the number of available marks. That is a deliberate position, not an oversight, and it has three consequences people keep running into:
- There is no published total. Nobody can tell you what the test was out of.
- There is no published maximum. No highest possible score exists in public.
- There is no published range. Anyone quoting one, such as 69 to 141, is describing the national GL model, which is a different scale.
So a standardised score cannot be converted back into marks, and any site offering to do it is guessing.
How many can you get wrong?
Unanswerable, and worth understanding why, because it is one of the most asked questions about 11+ marking.
With no published marks total and no published standardisation table, there is no route from "I can afford to drop X questions" to a standardised score. The honest answer is that it depends on the section, on your child's birth month, and on how the rest of the cohort did that year.
What can be said: there is no negative marking, so a guess costs nothing and a blank scores nothing. Every question should carry an answer by the time the section ends.
What happens after the score
The marking ends with a number. The number is then measured against thresholds the schools set, not GL:
| Set by | Figure | For |
|---|---|---|
| The partnership | Median of 200 | The scale all 19 schools report on |
| King Edward VI Foundation | 205 qualifying, 224 priority | Its Birmingham schools, 2027 entry |
| Queen Mary's Grammar School | 180 minimum qualifying | Walsall boys, 2026 entry |
Clearing a threshold is not an offer. Catchment and each school's oversubscription criteria decide that. Put your own number against these with our 11+ score checker.
See where your child stands today
Timed sections in the GL Assessment format, marked instantly, with a topic-by-topic breakdown. No sign-up to start.
Half the marks are English and verbal, and half the work is not
The weighting is the thing I would want every parent to act on. English and verbal reasoning together are fifty per cent of the marks. Maths is twenty five and non-verbal is twenty five. Yet in most houses maths gets the most time, because it feels the most measurable, and the half of the paper that decides more gets less work.
The second thing is the answer sheet. Only the answer sheet is marked. I have seen students work a question out perfectly in the booklet and score nothing for it because it never reached the sheet. Practise the transfer, and practise rubbing out rather than crossing out, because two marks on one question scores zero.
And there is no negative marking, so never leave a blank. If the clock is going and a question is beyond them, they put something down and move on. A guess costs nothing and a blank is a guaranteed zero.
Mushtaque Ahmed, Founder of GrammarPath and Bright Mentors
Frequently asked questions
How is the 11+ marked?
Only the separate multiple choice answer sheet is marked, by machine. Nothing written in the question booklet is seen, so an answer worked out correctly but not transferred scores nothing. A question with two marks on it scores zero, which is why rubbing out matters more than crossing out.
How is the 11+ score calculated?
In four stages: raw marks per section, then section weighting at 50% for English and verbal reasoning, 25% maths and 25% non-verbal reasoning, then age standardisation for the month the child was born, producing a standardised score on a scale with a median of 200.
How does the age standardisation process work?
Each child's raw performance is compared against others born in the same month, so a September-born child needs more raw marks than an August-born child to reach the same standardised score. It adjusts for age and nothing else, and the adjustment itself is not published.
Why can I not see my child's raw marks?
The King Edward VI Foundation states it does not release raw scores or the number of available marks. So there is no published total, no published maximum and no published range, and a standardised score cannot be converted back into marks by anyone.
How many questions can you get wrong in the 11+?
There is no way to answer it. With no published marks total and no published standardisation table, there is no route from a number of dropped questions to a standardised score. It depends on the section, the child's birth month and how the cohort did that year.
Is there negative marking in the 11+?
No. A wrong answer costs nothing more than a blank one, so every question should carry an answer by the time the section ends. Guessing on a question you cannot do is always better than leaving it empty.