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Designed specifically for the high school selective enrollment process in Chicago, the Selective Enrollment High School Entrance Exam is an achievement skills test. The exam, created by Chicago Public School’s Office of Access and Enrollment (OAE), is broken into four sections: math, reading comprehension, language, and vocabulary. The test takes approximately three hours to complete, and the number of questions can range from 40-56 per section. A calculator is not permitted and there is no guessing penalty on the SEHS.
To take the SEHS, Chicago Public School, parochial school, and private school students must sign up for the exam in the fall of their 8th-grade year. The test is administered several times in the fall/winter season, with testing dates in October, November, December, and January. Like the NWEA MAP test (refer to our previous blog post), the SEHS counts as 1/3, or 300 of the 900 attainable points, to get into a selective enrollment high school. The final 300 points are taken from a student’s 7th-grade grades in math, reading, science, and social studies.
Test Prep Chicago has prepared students for the SEHS the past 8 years through group courses and individual tutoring sessions. We have received very positive feedback from parents and students about our tutoring programs. To learn more about how to set-up private tutoring for the SEHS or to enroll in a SEHS prep course, please visit our website: testprepchicago.com.
Lauren Lynch, Tutoring Coordinator
lauren@testprepchicago.com
(312) 848-1266 -
what do you mean there is a no guessing penalty?
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Some exams (namely the SSAT — the entrance exam for boarding schools) subtract points for incorrect answers. The SEHS does not have a guessing penalty (students are not penalized for incorrect answers). Thus, students should be sure to answer every question on the SEHS even if the student must guess.
Feel free to email info@testprepchicago.com if you have any other questions.
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I’m daisy and I got to 8th grade
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I’m not sure if I got this, but are you saying that if I get an incorrect answer on the SEHS, (but complete the test). I could get all 300 points?
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copied from mary: “If you get an answer wrong, you will not earn points for that question. That is to say, if you have wrong answers, you cannot get the full 300 points. The lack of a guessing penalty means additional points will not be taken away for guessing incorrectly. In tests such as the SSAT, an incorrect answer not only means you will not earn points but that points you earned on other correctly answered questions will be subtracted. It is, in that case, better to leave the question blank than to answer it incorrectly. The SEHS test does not penalize students in this way – it is better to guess in the hope that you guess correctly than to leave the answer blank. You cannot however earn the full 300 points if you answer questions incorrectly (or leave them blank).”
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Yes. You can miss questions and/or not complete the exam and get 300.
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If you get an answer wrong, you will not earn points for that question. That is to say, if you have wrong answers, you cannot get the full 300 points. The lack of a guessing penalty means additional points will not be taken away for guessing incorrectly. In tests such as the SSAT, an incorrect answer not only means you will not earn points but that points you earned on other correctly answered questions will be subtracted. It is, in that case, better to leave the question blank than to answer it incorrectly. The SEHS test does not penalize students in this way – it is better to guess in the hope that you guess correctly than to leave the answer blank. You cannot however earn the full 300 points if you answer questions incorrectly (or leave them blank).
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(This is assuming there are not unscored questions that they are testing out to use for future exams. But these will not affect your score positively or negatively no matter how you answer.)
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Are there any vocab words you need to study for the exam?
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Does anyone know if the test proctors announce the time remaining for each section? My son just took the test and indicated he was just told when the exam ended, rather than a ‘5min left’ time check. He ended up leaving 5 questions blank, and is very worried since he know he should guess on any remaining questions. I’m sure he should have watched the clock himself, but am just wondering if there is a norm that is usually done for time checks by the proctors.
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im not sure but i hope they do because i take it in the fall lol
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Hi, does anyone know whether scratch paper is allowed on this exam for the math section?
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yes, scratch paper will be provided
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yes scratch paper is allowed
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My kid took the SEHS test on 12/05/20, and said that there were questions outside of the realm of Algebra I, and also found out that some of her classmates who took the test at the same location (Lane Tech), on the same date, at the same time, had a different color of booklet that did not have the extra questions. Does anyone have a similar experience? What do these alternative, extra questions, booklets mean for the scoring? It’s tough enough that we’re classified as Tier 4 (but nowhere near the true demographic, oh well) … we don’t need additional “handicaps.” Thanks. 🙂
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Most likely, those were IQ test kind of questions (reported several years ago on cpsobsessed) and certainly they don’t count in SEHS scoring. It’s a puzzle what CPS wants to do with such questions. They may eventually become a part of SEHS scores, or CPS intends to use the data for longitudinal analysis.
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Not sure but if they are extra questions I guessing hoping it doesnt effect the score but its used to gauge and measure what the overall educational exposure all the students are receiving ??
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On MAP test, a calculator will pop on up the screen for certain questions. Any idea of they provide one during certain sections on the SEHS exam?
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When will the SEHS results/letters be posted this year? Does anyone know?
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Can we still re-rank the SEHS choices? I think the deadline for that is 2/8. Can anyone please confirm?
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Does anyone know if, historically, students entering HS obtain higher percentile rankings on SEHS or NWEA exams? For instance, if a student scores a 90/90 on NWEA math/reading, would they historically be likely to score higher, lower, or about the same percentile rankings on SEHS exam?
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From what my child and other friends said, the NWEA tests are harder than the SEHS exam. So I would think if a child did well on NWEA, he/she would score higher on the SEHS exam.
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This is usually the case, but now always. Based on my oldest child’s peer group, most students (SE school) did better on the entrance exam than the NWEA MAP.
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Does anyone know any websites to prepare for the selective enrollment other than test prep. Test Prep is a bit too expensive for the circumstances right now.
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My two kids now in sehs used Khan Academy and IXL throughout elementary school to study math as well as other subjects. Some years it was part of the math curriculum to practice. I purchased a family IXL subscription. Kids can take an assessment at beginning to see where they are and then start focusing on areas for improvement. Kids are different though, some may prefer workbooks or an actual class. If you can help your kid by timing them to figure out how long to spend on questions. I think kids are allowed watches in these exams? Not sure. If so, perhaps kids can keep time themselves during the exam.
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My daughter took the selective enrollment exam and explained there were 4 sections and her only struggle was math. She was beyond nervous almost terrified because she is an over thinker and believes her faith/future relies solely on this test!! Pressure to say the least. Well she said they did not have a time warning and the 40 mins flew by and only completed 20/40 of the math problems she intended on guessing when there was a little less then 5 mins but was not warned of time. I know she should have kept an eye on time but when focused time does tend to slip past the best of us. Does anyone know how many questions you can miss before being eliminated?
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I just took the test, and I only managed to answer about half of the questions during the math section as well. I’m sure others struggled also. I hope your daughter did well! Best of luck.
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My 8th grader who took the test under a lot of pressure as well and unfortunately a sleepless night due to anxiety, confirmed that math was very hard (this year) and many kids did not complete 🙁 My reasoning is that since they eliminated NWEA they wanted more room for differentiation…who knows…
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Can you ask if a question is to be solved with order of operations or with standard math?
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