PARENTS are stumbling over 11+ style questions that thousands of children across the country face in entrance exams.

Grammar was a particular sticking point for many of the 10,000 parents that tackled the exam questions on the Explore Learning website over the past year.

The average overall score of the parents’ mock test was just 61 per cent equating to just a 1 per cent pass rate.

Parents who took the quiz were asked a range of questions covering grammar, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and mathematical reasoning to give them a taster of what primary school children undertake.

Relative clauses were the biggest puzzle with more than half (59 per cent) of parents getting this question wrong: Identify the part of the sentence that contains a relative clause.

On Saturday, the car broke down, which distressed Viktor as he was late for the match.

Relative clauses start with a relative pronoun such as who, that, which, whose, where or when.

Pronouns proved a stumbling block again with this second grammar question: 53 per cent of those tested failed to identify the pronoun in the following sentence.

Do you like strawberry and vanilla ice cream? inquired Katie.

Angles posed another problem with a similar number of parents struggling to correctly identify angles. Just under half (49 per cent) got this question wrong: What is the size of angle x in the triangle below?

More than four in 10 (44 per cent) parents couldn’t solve this maths problem: Cara is saving her paper round earnings to buy a new bicycle. She earns £6, seven days a week. The bicycle costs £462, how many weeks will it take her to save enough money to buy the bike?

Charlotte Gater, Head of Curriculum at Explore Learning, says: “The results of this survey come as no surprise! The curriculum has changed so much since parents were at school some of these terms and questions that they were up against will be entirely new concepts. Even if the concepts are not new, if parents haven’t actively used these skills since school, they can be hard to remember. This is why we have open sessions with parents to give guidance on how to support children with the exams and show them what they can do at home”

Explore Learning in Altrincham are inviting all Year 4 children who are considering sitting an 11 Plus or Entrance Exam test to come along to their centre this April. They will be running workshops for you and your child to help upskill you both in comprehension and problem-solving skills. Interested to meet their team? Find out more about their 11 Plus and Entrance Exam offering? Then why not try Explore for free? Call them on 0161 241 0006. Email them at altrincham@explorelearning.co.uk. Or pop in and visit them in Explore Learning Next to Sainsbury's Lloyd Street Altrincham WA14 2SU.