Why Your Child's Practice Scores Aren't Improving (And What to Do About It)

Why plateaus happen

Score plateaus are one of the most common frustrations in test preparation, and they're almost never a sign that your child has reached their ceiling. There are usually three things going on.

1. They've already picked up the easy wins. The early improvements came from exposure to the test format, question types, and time pressure. Those gains come quickly, and then they stop. The remaining gaps are harder to close because they require deeper understanding, not just familiarity.
2. They're making the same types of mistakes without addressing the root cause. A child who keeps losing marks on multi-step word problems isn't going to fix that by doing more multi-step word problems. They need to understand what's going wrong in their reasoning, and that requires a different kind of attention.
3. Their practice has become routine. If every session looks the same, their brain stops being challenged by it. They go through the motions, score about the same, and nothing changes.

The review is where the learning happens

This is the single biggest shift most families need to make. Practice tests are not the work. They're the measurement. The actual learning happens in the review.

If your child does a test, checks the score, and moves on to the next one, they're skipping the most valuable part. The questions they got wrong are a roadmap to improvement, but only if someone sits down and works through why they got them wrong.

Was it a careless mistake under time pressure? A concept they don't understand? A question type they haven't seen before? Each of these requires a different response, and lumping them all together as "wrong answers" misses the point.

On OC Test Prep, every question comes with a detailed explanation of the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Using these to review wrong answers after each test is one of the most effective things you can do to break through a plateau.

Strategy beats repetition

Sometimes the issue isn't what your child knows. It's how they approach problems they're unsure about.

A child who doesn't have a method for tackling unfamiliar questions will either guess or freeze. More practice doesn't fix this because the problem isn't knowledge. It's strategy.

Teaching your child specific approaches gives them new tools to apply to the same problems. Mental maths strategies like friendly numbers can turn a difficult multiplication into a simple one. Working backwards from the answer choices can shortcut complex reasoning. Process of elimination can narrow four options down to two before your child even starts solving.

These aren't shortcuts that bypass learning. They're the methods that strong mathematical and logical thinkers use naturally. And for many children, learning even one new strategy is enough to unlock a score jump that weeks of repetition couldn't achieve.

Mix up the practice

If every practice session is a full-length timed test, your child is spending most of their time on areas they're already comfortable with. A 35-question maths test might only have 3-4 questions targeting their weak area. That's not enough focused practice to improve.

Switch it up. Use shorter, targeted mini-tests that focus specifically on the categories where they're losing marks. If they've been doing mostly maths, spend a week focused on reading or thinking skills. If they always practise in the same order, change it.

Variety forces the brain to adapt rather than coast. And targeted practice on weak areas delivers far more improvement per minute than another full-length test.

When to worry (and when not to)

Score fluctuations of 10-15% between sessions are completely normal for children this age. Concentration, tiredness, question difficulty, even what they had for breakfast can swing a score. Don't read too much into any single test result.

Instead, look at trends over three or four sessions. If the overall direction is upward, even slowly, the preparation is working. Stay the course.

If the trend is genuinely flat over several weeks despite targeted work and proper review, it's usually a sign to change approach rather than increase volume. More of the same won't produce different results. A fresh diagnostic can help identify what's actually holding them back.

Break the cycle

Plateaus feel discouraging, but they're a normal part of learning. They don't mean your child has peaked. They mean it's time to work differently, not harder.

Focus on review. Teach strategies. Target the weak spots. The scores will follow.

Not sure where the plateau is coming from? A free diagnostic test breaks down your child's performance by category across all three test sections, so you can see exactly where to focus. Pair it with our detailed question explanations and strategy tutorials to turn flat scores into real progress.