Scholarship and

Selection Tests

Schola r s hip and s election te s ts

A guide for students and parents
2nd edition
Scholarship and selection tests aim to identify the very best students for elite schools and accelerated learning
programs. Many outstanding students sit these tests, but there are relatively few scholarship and select-entry
places offered. To be of any use, scholarship and selection tests must identify very small differences in the
academic performance of very high-achieving students. The tests are demanding and the process can be
very competitive.
As a result, preparing, applying and sitting for a scholarship or selection test can be a challenging process
for students and parents — but this experience can also provide an opportunity for students to develop
their academic skills and abilities in valuable ways.
Scholarship and Selection Tests: A guide for students and parents aims to help students and
parents to better understand scholarship and selection tests, so that students can develop their full potential
and parents can support their children do their best when it counts. This second edition contains:
• updated advice on preparing for scholarship and selection tests, including all-new:

Scholarship and
◗◗ information on dealing with gifted and talented students

◗◗ resources on select-entry accelerated, high-achievement and gifted and talented programs

◗◗ details on specific scholarship and selection tests

◗◗ case studies and insights from participating schools

•
Selection Tests
example questions and sample answers with detailed explanations, strategies and approaches
•
2nd e d it i on
suggestions on how students can develop the skills and abilities the tests target
• guidance on how to manage expectations and better understand results.

A guide for students and parents

Cover images: © AISPIX by Image Source | Shutterstock.com ISBN 978-1-74286-156-2
© Dmitri Mikitenko | Shutterstock.com
2nd edition

9 781742 861562
Scholarship and
Selection Tests
 Scholarship and
Selection Tests
A guide for students and parents
2nd edition

Rebecca Leech

ACER Press
This edition published 2013
by ACER Press, an imprint of
Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd
19 Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell
Victoria, 3124, Australia

First published 2009 as A Parent’s Guide to Scholarship Tests

Reprinted 2010, 2012

www.acerpress.com.au
[email protected]

Text copyright © Australian Council for Educational Research 2013

Design and typography copyright © ACER Press 2013

This book is copyright. All rights reserved. Except under the

conditions described in the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia
and subsequent amendments, and any exceptions permitted
under the current statutory licence scheme administered by
Copyright Agency Limited (www.copyright.com.au), no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, transmitted, broadcast or communicated in any form
or by any means, optical, digital, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written
permission of the publisher.

Cover design, text design and typesetting by ACER Project Publishing

Printed in Australia by BPA Print Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: (pbk)

Author: Leech, Rebecca.

Title: Scholarship and selection tests: a guide for students

and Parents / Rebecca Leech.

Edition: 2nd ed.

ISBN: 9781742861562 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes bibliographical references.

Subjects: Scholarships--Australia.
Examinations--Study guides.
Academic achievement.
Ability--Testing.

Dewey Number: 378.340994

Contents
Acknowledgements vii

Introduction viii

Chapter 1 Getting started 1

What are scholarship and selection tests? 1

Identifying high-achieving students 3

Gifted and talented students 3

Deciding to sit for a scholarship or selection test 7

Choosing a school 9

Registering for a scholarship or selection test 11

Case study: Box Hill High School, Melbourne, Victoria 13

Chapter 2 About the tests 16

Answering multiple-choice questions 19

Humanities and Reading Comprehension 24

Mathematics and Science 30

Abstract Reasoning 36

Written Expression 39

Case study: Anglican Church Grammar School,

Brisbane, Queensland 49
Contents

Chapter 3 Developing skills and abilities 51

Practice tests and private tutoring 54

Thinking 55

Reading 64

Writing 68

Mathematics 72

Case study: Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Sydney, New South Wales 76

Chapter 4 Preparing for the day 78

The week before the test 78

The day of the test 80

During the test 81

After the test 85

Case Study: Trinity Anglican School, White Rock, Queensland 85

Chapter 5 Now what? 87

Managing expectations 87

Understanding the meaning of results 88

Requests for information 93

Case study: St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School,

Gippsland, Victoria 95

Appendix 1: Description of specific scholarship tests 97

Appendix 2: D
 escription of specific selection tests,
select-entry schools and programs 100

References 106

vi
Acknowledgements
ACER would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people to
the development of this book: Transitions Coordinator of Box Hill High School,
Mrs Elizabeth Cohen; Deputy Headmaster (Academic) of Anglican Church
Grammar School, Dr Dirk Wellham; Head Teacher, Curriculum R–12 of
Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Sydney, Mr Rod Broadhead; Principal of Trinity
Anglican School, Mr Christopher Daunt Watney; and Head of Admissions of St
Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, Mrs Amanda Bibby.

Source acknowledgements
p. 17a Image © Colette3 2013. Used under licence from Shutterstock.com;
p. 17b Image © Tony Campbell 2013. Used under licence from Shutterstock.com;
p. 17c Image © Gary Unwin 2013. Used under licence from Shutterstock.com;
p. 20 Image © Creative Jen Designs 2013. Used under licence from Shutterstock.
com;
p. 41 Lighthouse image © 2013 Amanda Coleiro; p. 43 Grandfather clock image
reproduced with permission of <www.windsorchairs.biz> (Kevin O’Connell).

Every effort has been made to acknowledge and contact copyright owners.
However, should any infringement have occurred, ACER tenders its apology
and invites copyright owners to contact ACER.

vii
Introduction
This book is for parents considering registering their child to sit a scholarship
or selection test, and for the students who will sit the test. It contains advice and
information to help you as a student or parent:
• reflect on your motivations and expectations
• understand the details of the testing process
• familiarise yourself with the format and structure of scholarship and
selection tests
• familiarise yourself with the types of questions commonly found in scholar­
ship and selection tests
• understand more about underlying skills and abilities these tests target
• understand more about how students can work to develop these skills and
abilities
• help you to prepare for the day of the test
• help you to manage expectations and understand the meaning of results.
Note that the title of the book is not How to Win a Scholarship or How to Get
into the School of Your Choice. Each student’s level of achievement on the test will
be largely the result of his or her natural abilities, learning and efforts over a
long period of time. The aim of this book is to help you make the best of that
learning and those efforts.
There are many approaches you could take to preparing your child for a
scholarship or selection test and this book provides a great deal of useful advice.
However, it is not an exhaustive list of every learning exercise proven to make a
positive difference to test results. Children develop at different rates, and each
child has an individual set of interests and abilities, just as each parent has an
individual style of parenting. The aim of the advice in this book is to provide a
range of ideas from which you may choose those that appeal to you and your
child. What you make of this advice is up to you.

viii
 Introduction

Many parents feel daunted by the responsibility of preparing their children

to sit a scholarship or selection test. Parents often feel they need strong advice
and clear instruction on how to proceed. With this in mind, this book is written
in a direct way and, in many cases, will take an instructive tone, rather than
couching statements in qualifications and disclaimers. For simplicity’s sake, the
text is more likely to read, ‘Read to your child’ than to read, ‘There is some
evidence that reading to your child may have a positive effect on your child’s
literacy levels, although this is the subject of some debate in the academic
community’.
Some points that this book will repeat many times are: that scholarship and
selection tests are designed to be difficult for high-achieving students; that
many more students sit for scholarship and selection tests than there are places
available; and that most students who sit a scholarship or selection test will not
get a place. In light of this, rather than focusing on attaining a scholarship or
gaining entry to a particular school or program as the goal, the emphasis in this
book has been placed on the process of preparing for the test, and making that
process as useful as possible for each student in the wider context of his or her
learning.

A note on gender
For simplicity of language this book will refer to students, and your child as a
potential test candidate, as female (‘she’, ‘her’, and so on) rather than ‘he or she’,
‘his or her’, and so on, from this point on. Despite this, the advice and suggestions
given are intended to apply to both boys and girls; this book will not give any
gender-specific advice about preparing boys or girls.
A lot has been written in recent times about differences between the
learning styles of boys and girls. Some of this is evidence-based but much is
not. When considering population groups like ‘males’ and ‘females’ it is often
the case that variation within the group is as large as or larger than variation
between the groups. In other words, just as knowing that men are on average
taller than women doesn’t tell you whether your son will be taller than the
centre for the National Women’s Basketball Team, so knowing that females
on average use certain learning styles more than males doesn’t tell you much
about any particular boy or girl. You and your child are in the best position

ix
Introduction

to understand and judge her (and your) individual learning styles and
strengths.
Please note that ACER conducts extensive reviews during test development
and trialling to ensure that there is no gender bias in any test units, items or
stimulus materials.

A note on terminology
Throughout this book, and in the wider educational context, the terms ‘selective
entry’, ‘select-entry’ and ‘selective’ are used interchangeably to describe schools
and programs that offer places based on some kind of selection criteria.
Whichever term is used, they should be taken to mean the same thing.

x
Chapter 1 Getting started

While you are no doubt keen to get started with preparing your child to sit a
scholarship or selection test, it is best to start with the basics. This chapter will
explain the purpose of scholarship and selection tests and, as importantly, will
ask you to reflect on your motivations for registering your child to sit one.

What are scholarship and selection tests?

Scholarship tests
Schools use scholarship tests to determine academic performance at the top end
of achievement. Based on the results of a scholarship test, schools may decide to
award a student a full or partial scholarship to cover the cost of attendance fees.
Individual schools have their own criteria for awarding scholarships, and this
may not be based entirely on the results of scholarship tests, but the tests do
provide schools with objective, comparable information about student
achievement across a range of academic areas. The most widely used tests
streamline the scholarship application process for students.

Selection tests
Schools also use selection tests to determine academic performance at the top
end of achievement. Different schools use selection tests for different purposes.
Selective government secondary schools and some independent schools use
selection tests to determine which students will gain entry to the schools.

1
Scholarship and Selection tests

Some non-selective government secondary schools offer a number of places

to students from out of the local school zone, and may award these places based
on the results of selection tests. Other schools might use selection tests to
determine which students entering or enrolled at the school are eligible for
gifted and talented or accelerated learning programs. Yet other schools may use
selection tests to identify high-achieving students in order to offer them
extension activities within mainstream classes.
Again, individual schools have their own criteria for awarding select-entry
places, and this may not be based entirely on the results of selection tests, but
the tests do provide schools with objective, comparable information about
student achievement across a range of academic areas.

Other types of testing

Most schools test students on entry and throughout the year to monitor
students’ progressive achievement. These low-stakes tests are designed to
measure whether each student is developing academic skills and
understandings, learning the curriculum that is being taught and performing
to her full potential. These tests allow schools to personalise the learning of
individual students: to extend high-achieving students and to offer support to
students who need it.
Students at different year levels in their schooling may also be required to sit
for national or international testing. This may include the National Assessment
Program (NAP) in Literacy and Numeracy, Science Literacy, Civics and
Citizenship, and Information and Communication Technology Literacy; the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA); the Trends in
International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS); and the Progress in International
Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). These low-stakes tests allow governments to
ensure Australian students are meeting important educational goals against
national and international benchmarks and they also inform educational policy.
Scholarship and selection tests are very different from diagnostic and
monitoring tests. National testing programs are designed to test the entire
student population, from the lowest- to the highest-achieving students.
Scholarship and selection tests are designed to be very challenging for high-
achieving students.

2
 Getting started

Identifying high-achieving students

As these tests aim to identify the very best students from a group of high-
achieving students, they are very challenging. Schools are generally more
interested in assessing students’ abilities to think creatively and to problem-
solve than in assessing their abilities to memorise facts and figures. In light of
this, many scholarship and selection tests aim more to measure students’ skills
of analysis, comprehension, interpretation and reasoning, rather than to test
their knowledge of curriculum content. Many scholarship and selection tests
will assess students’ aptitudes in key academic areas such as written expression,
reading and viewing, humanities, mathematics and science.
Many more students sit scholarship and selection tests than there are
scholarships or select-entry places available. The schools that run these tests
have very strict standards about who will receive places. Some schools may
have a hundred or more students sit the test for each scholarship or select-entry
place available. The aim of these tests is to identify the very best potential
students from a pool of outstanding students. To be of any use, scholarship and
selection tests must find and exaggerate often very small differences in the
academic performance of high-achieving students.
These tests are designed to be challenging for students who are accustomed
to receiving high marks and excelling in school. In any group of students sitting
a scholarship or selection test, the overwhelming majority will be students who
achieve in the top 20 per cent of the students in their year-level nationwide.

Gifted and talented students

The concept of giftedness in children is complex and can be contentious. There
is no commonly accepted definition of giftedness. Most discussion about
giftedness, however, makes a distinction between the ideas of potential and
performance.
Potential, also sometimes called aptitude, can be thought of as a student’s
ability to learn. Performance, also called competence, can be thought of as
student’s demonstrated achievement.

3
Scholarship and Selection tests

Many schools in Australia and around the world draw on the theories of
Professor Francoys Gagné, a French-Canadian psychology professor and
leading authority on giftedness, to develop educational programs for gifted
and talented students (Gagné, 2003).
Gagné’s model suggests that gifted students are those who have very high
potential or ability in one or more of the domains of intellect, creativity, social
interaction, perception, or muscular or motor control. He considers that talented
students are those who have demonstrated outstanding performance in one or
more areas, such as academics, arts, technology, sports, social service, business
and leadership, or athletic endeavours.
According to this model of giftedness, ability transforms into achievement
through a complex developmental process. This process is shaped by a number
of factors, including a child’s personal characteristics, such as motivation,
willpower, confidence and self-awareness; and her home and school learning
environments, including the influence of her family and her teachers.
Following this model, then, we can see that potential or ability is not the
same as performance or achievement. Even if you agree that some children
seem to have a more natural ability in some areas than others, these children
will not necessarily become high-achieving students unless there are other
positive factors, such as student interest and hard work and family and school
support. Similarly, a student who is encouraged to set high standards for herself
and work hard to achieve them may be just as likely to succeed as an apparently
gifted student who is not supported or extended.
All students have the potential to learn, to improve on what they know,
understand and can do. Australian Council for Educational Research chief
executive Professor Geoff Masters argues that human ability or intelligence
is not fixed. Children are not born with their future level of intellectual
achievement set in stone; every child is capable of developing their skills and
knowledge. In his essay on ‘The Power of Expectation’ (2011), Masters writes
that:

... educational achievement is not pre-determined in the way that attributes

such as height are pre-determined. Achievement is strongly influenced by the
quality of teaching, parental support and expectations, and student effort.

4
 Getting started

Educational achievement also is not a competition with limited spoils for the
winners. Just as levels of health, wealth and educational participation have
increased in the general population over time, there is no reason why the
percentage of students achieving excellence also should not increase.

Characteristics of gifted and talented students

In education settings, it is generally accepted that a gifted and talented child
who has been supported and extended will be performing at a level significantly
advanced from the average for other students her age. A gifted and talented
child may display a range of interests, skills and understandings beyond her
similar-aged peers; on the downside, she may also display signs of frustration
or boredom if she is not being adequately challenged.
According to the Australian Council for Educational Research (2011, p. 2):

Typically, gifted students learn rapidly in certain domains, quickly grasping

and applying concepts. In these domains, they think critically and creatively,
and use advanced techniques to problem-solve. They may have a good
memory and vocabulary, an independent approach to tasks, and sophisticated
interests in their preferred areas. They may have advanced leadership and
interpersonal skills. They may display perfectionism, hypersensitivity and
over-excitability.

The range of characteristics displayed may vary between children of different

ages and personalities. However, as a very general guide, some common
characteristics of gifted and talented children are discussed in the section
below.
The Director of the Gifted Development Centre at the Institute for the Study
of Advanced Development in the United States, Dr Linda Kreger Silverman, has
compiled a list of common traits of gifted and talented children. She suggests
that if a child demonstrates more than three-quarters of these traits, it is likely
that she is gifted (Silverman, 2003):
• good problem-solving and reasoning abilities
• rapid learning ability
• early or avid reading ability

5
Scholarship and Selection tests

• extensive vocabulary
• ability with numbers
• good at visual puzzles
• excellent memory
• long attention span
• personal sensitivity
• compassion for others
• perfectionism
• intensity
• moral sensitivity
• unusual curiosity
• persevering when interested
• high degree of energy
• preference for older companions
• wide range of interests
• great sense of humour
• concerned with justice, fairness
• at times, judgement seems mature for age
• keen powers of observation
• vivid imagination
• high degree of creativity
• tends to question authority.
Your child may display these traits in a number of ways. For example, your
child may display advancement in her thinking skills, and be likely to learn
new skills very quickly, recall past events quickly and accurately, and make
sophisticated connections between past and present experiences. She may
display advanced planning skills for her age in her learning or play, improvise
well in learning or play, or find unusual or imaginative ways to do things.
Your child may show advanced speech and language skills, and be likely to
use language creatively, such as through inventing intricate songs or stories.
She is likely to be able to understand and act on complex directions in her
learning. She may also be adept at using language to resolve conflict, or to
manipulate the behaviour of other children.
If you child displays advanced social skills, you may notice that she is able
to handle the kinds of responsibilities that would usually be given to older

6
 Getting started

children. On the downside, she may sometimes come across as bossy, if she is
prone to taking charge in learning or play with other children. She may also
become easily frustrated with other children if she does not understand why
they do not share her level of understanding and ability (Government of South
Australia, Women’s and Children’s Health Network, 2011; Government of
Western Australia, Department of Education, 2012).

Deciding to sit for a scholarship or selection test

Preparing for and sitting a scholarship or selection test can involve a lot of hard
work and emotional stress. It can be a gruelling and competitive experience,
both for the children and for their parents. Most students who sit a scholarship
test will not receive a place, and the disappointment of missing out can be
demoralising if not handled sensitively. This may be especially true if your
child is accustomed to achieving academic excellence. Working in a group of
mixed-ability students, such as is found in an everyday school classroom, your
child may often find herself achieving in the top percentage of students. In a
scholarship or selection test, however, your child will be competing against
other very high-achieving students for a very limited number of places.
Further, some students who receive a scholarship or select-entry place find
that when they do attend the school of their choice, they experience increased
pressure — from the school, peers, or themselves — to excel academically to
‘prove’ they ‘deserve’ the place. In some cases, scholarship or select-entry
recipients have attended the school of their choice but decided that it was not a
good fit. In the case of scholarship places, when this happens, the scholarship
monies are forfeited and may have to be repaid to the school.
Weighed against these potential negative effects, the most obvious benefit
of sitting a scholarship or selection test is the prospect that your child may win
a place to the school of your choice. Certainly, the adage that ‘you have to be in
it to win it’ holds true in the case of scholarship testing. Unfortunately, however,
while the odds are better than winning the lottery, there is a strong possibility
that your child, despite being a very high-achieving student, may not receive a
place. Rather than having the scholarship or select-entry place as the goal, an
emphasis on the process — and making that process as useful as you can — is
an important consideration.

7
Scholarship and Selection tests

The test preparation process can be a beneficial learning experience.

Preparing for the test can be an excellent opportunity for a student to develop
problem-solving and creative thinking skills that may be useful throughout the
rest of her schooling, and indeed her life. Families may find that the extensive
time spent together on long-term preparation for the test is a valuable bonding
experience. The experience of sitting a large public examination can also be
constructive practise for the rest of a student’s academic career.
With these considerations in mind, it may be useful to reflect on your
motivation for registering your child to sit a scholarship or selection test. Ask
yourself:
• Why do I want my child to do this?
• Is my child likely to win a scholarship or select-entry place?
• How will my child react if she doesn’t win a place? How will I react?
• Can I make the process of preparing for and sitting the test a positive
experience for my child regardless of the outcome?
• How important is it to me, and to my child, that she wins a scholarship or
select-entry place?
Each parent and student will weigh these considerations differently, and
only you and your family can decide what is best for your child.

Steps to deciding if your child should sit a scholarship or

selection test
1. Consider your child’s academic results. In particular, consider her performance on
national testing programs such as the National Assessment Program — Literacy
and Numeracy (NAPLAN) or on statewide programs. It is important to remember
that these programs are different to scholarship and selection tests; NAPLAN is a
general test for every student in Australia, while the scholarship and selection
tests are specialised for high-achieving students. National or statewide programs
do, however, assess the general academic ability of your child, and provide an
overview of your child’s performance against other students’. As a guide, the
candidature for scholarship and selection tests is usually the top 20 per cent of
students.

2. Genuinely assess not only your child’s intellectual capability, but also her emotional
capability to handle a challenging, long-term preparation process and the possibility

8
 Getting started

of not winning a scholarship or select-entry place. The notion that your child can’t
get a place if she doesn’t sit the test is true — but the process is very competitive,
and it is important that children do not feel they have ‘failed’ if they don’t receive a
place. Consider whether your child is emotionally capable of reacting well to a
letter that says, ‘You have been unsuccessful in your application.’ Most students
who sit the test will receive such a letter.

3. Consider which school is the best fit for your child’s interests and abilities.
Investigate whether the school of your choice offers scholarships or select-entry
programs, and if so which scholarship and selection tests the school runs. For more
on this, see the next section, ‘Which school should my child apply to?’

Choosing a school
Choosing a school for your child could be the subject of another book entirely.
This section will focus on how to choose the school where your child should
apply to sit a scholarship or selection test.
Individual schools choose whether they want to award scholarships or
select-entry places, how many places they will award, to whom and on what
criteria. Scholarship and selection tests provide schools with objective
measurement of students’ academic aptitude — but this may not be the only
factor in schools’ choice of scholarship and select-entry recipients.
Not all schools run all scholarship or selection tests. Not all schools run
tests at all levels of entry. Some schools do not allow current students of that
school to sit for scholarship or selective program entry tests. Check the details
of the tests offered at the school of your choice to avoid registering your child
for a test for which she is ineligible. Be sure to check the level of the test is
applicable to your child’s next year at school.
Some schools weigh aspects of the scholarship or selection test results more
heavily than others; for example, if the school wants to improve its mathematics
scores, it may choose to award a place to a student who performed very well in
the maths section of a scholarship test, even if that student was not the best
performer overall. Conversely, other schools may look for academically balanced
students who perform reasonably well across all sections of the test.

9
Scholarship and Selection tests

Schools may consider additional criteria not covered by the scholarship or

selection test, such as students’ leadership potential, involvement in extra-
curricular or co-curricular activities or community service, or achievement in
sports, music or arts programs. Some schools conduct interviews with a shortlist
of students before awarding places.
Some schools have a set number of scholarships or select-entry places they
award each year based on consistent criteria. Other schools vary the number or
type of such places or the criteria from year to year. Some schools may not
decide how many scholarships or select-entry places they will award until they
have seen the results of scholarship and selection tests. Some may not award
any scholarships, or may break equivalent full scholarships into half or partial
scholarships awarded to several students. Some schools apply limits to their
scholarships, and may only award scholarships to students who meet their
definition of financial need.
You may want to know what the chances are that your child will win a
scholarship or select-entry place, but due to the variables between individual
schools, this is difficult to quantify. It is likely, however, that your child will
have a better chance of winning a place at a school that values her particular
interests and strengths.
Before registering your child to sit a scholarship or selection test at your
school of choice, learn as much as you can about the school’s scholarship or
selection procedures. Read the school’s website and newsletters, and if you have
questions, contact the school directly.

Considerations when choosing a school

• How many scholarships or select-entry places does the school plan to offer?

• Does the school plan to offer full or partial scholarships?

• How many students usually sit the scholarship or selection test for the school?

• Are some sections of the test weighted more heavily than others? Is the school
particularly looking for students strong in written expression, humanities, or maths
and science?

• Are scholarships or select-entry places awarded based purely on the results of the
test, or does the school have additional criteria? If so, what are these criteria?

10
 Getting started

• Does the school apply additional criteria not covered by the scholarship or selection
test, such as students’ leadership potential, involvement in extra-curricular
activities or community service, or achievement in sports, music or arts programs?

• Does the school conduct interviews of students before awarding scholarships or

select-entry places?

• Does the school apply limits, such as financial need, when awarding scholarships?
If so, what are these factors and how are they defined?

Registering for a scholarship or selection test

Scholarship and selection tests are often run by organisations external to
schools. The testing organisation will develop the test, supply test materials to
participating schools for administration, and then collect completed tests to
conduct the marking, analysis and reporting. You must register with the school,
not the testing organisation. To ensure objectivity and neutrality, testing
organisations have minimal contact with students and parents. In general,
testing organisations report the results directly to participating schools, not to
students or parents. Some providers may send individual reports direct to
students but this is the exception rather than the rule. Testing organisations do
not choose which students receive scholarships.
Each school sets their own registration fee. You must pay a separate fee for
each school with which you register. Check with the individual school.
Scholarship and selection tests are usually held between February and July
of the year before the intake of that scholarship cohort; for example, a student
would sit the scholarship or selection test in February of her final year of primary
school, for potential entry into the secondary school of her choice the following
year. Be sure to check with the school of your choice to confirm testing dates.
Cooperative testing programs allow you to register your child with more
than one participating school, but your child will sit the one test only. You must
pay the registration fee for each school. Your child’s results are then passed on
to all the schools you have registered with.
You can register your child to sit a scholarship or selection test either via a
pen and paper registration form available from schools, or online via schools’

11
Scholarship and Selection tests

websites. Some schools accept only pen and paper registrations or only online
registrations; check with the school of your choice.
Check individual schools’ websites or contact schools’ scholarship or
transitions administrators for further information about scholarships and
select-entry registration processes. Some schools may require additional
information or have extra registration forms to fill out. It is your responsibility
to check whether you have met a school’s requirements before submitting an
application.
Your child will usually sit the test at the school for which she wishes to
apply. In the case of cooperative tests, your child will sit the test at the first
preference school. If you are distant from the school, most programs will be
able to offer you alternative arrangements.
After the test day, the testing organisation will mark the completed tests.
Marking of multiple-choice answer sheets is computerised. For some tests,
specialised teams of experienced markers conduct marking of the written
expression sections of the test, and each written piece is blind-marked by several
markers. Blind marking is a process where tests are graded independently so
that one marker’s grade does not influence the other marker’s grade and vice
versa.
The testing organisation provides results to the school or schools you have
registered with. Testing organisations will generally provide results to schools
within one month of the test date. Schools relay results to students at their
discretion.
Your child will receive written notification from the school stating whether
or not she has been successful in winning a scholarship or a select-entry place
to the school. Testing organisations may also provide an individual report of
your child’s performance to the school, which the school may choose to pass
onto you.
If your child is successful in winning a scholarship or select-entry place, the
school of your choice will provide further information on how to enrol your
child. For ideas on how to debrief if your child does not receive a scholarship or
select-entry place, see Chapter 5, ‘Now what?’, later in this book.

12
 Getting started

Case study: Box Hill High School, Melbourne, Victoria

Box Hill High School is a coeducational government secondary school

catering to approximately 1000 students. Entry to the school, due to high
demand and a small site, is subject to government neighbourhood
zoning policy. Under the zoning policy, all children in the local area
seeking enrolment will be admitted. The school has a well-established
Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) program. SEAL is a state-
government-accredited program for students with high potential (see
Appendix 2 for more information). Neighbourhood zoning does not
apply to the SEAL program.
Under the SEAL program, students are able to accelerate or extend
their education. Students in the Box Hill High School SEAL program
may choose to condense the six-year secondary curriculum into five
years; however, most choose to study for six years and enrich their
education by undertaking breadth subjects (such as advanced writing
skills or mechanical/electronic engineering) and additional subjects
from the Victorian Certificate of Education and University Enhancement
subjects in their senior secondary schooling.
Box Hill High School uses the Higher Ability Selection Test (HAST)
to identify students for entry to the SEAL program (see Appendix 1 for
more information on HAST). Box Hill High School requires students
sitting the HAST to take an additional maths test developed by the
school.
Students sit the selection test in Year 6 for entry into Box Hill High
School in Year 7.
Box Hill High School Transition Coordinator, Mrs Elizabeth Cohen,
explains that the school’s mainstream curriculum is academically
focused, and that the SEAL program is particularly intensive.
‘Anyone is welcome to sit the selection test but many children who
sit the test have been identified as gifted from a very early age. For
example, some children have had educational psychologists give them
the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC-IV] test; others

13
Scholarship and Selection tests

identify from the National Assessment Program — Literacy and

­
Numeracy [NAPLAN] testing,’ Mrs Cohen says.
The school considers students’ overall performance on the selection
test when identifying students for the SEAL program.
‘The selection test result is the first thing we look at. We consider
students’ performance in all sections of the test to define the top-ranking
students,’ Mrs Cohen says.
The school also considers additional criteria to further narrow the
pool of high-achieving students identified by the selection test.
‘Parents who aim to have their children entered into the SEAL
program usually send in a complete CV of their child — including
reference letters from principals and teachers, school reports, NAPLAN
test results, and so on — to support their application to get into the
program,’ she says.
Box Hill High School also conducts interviews with students as part
of the SEAL selection process.
The school discourages parents from sending their children to test
coaching programs.
‘A lot of parents ask if they can send their children to coaching
schools to prepare for the selection process, but we strongly prefer that
students aren’t coached. We don’t want children to be coached to within
an inch of their life every spare minute they have. We are looking to
identify the children who are genuinely gifted for our SEAL program,
as we select on potential rather than proven performance,’ Mrs Cohen
explains.
In 2012, more than 260 students sat the selection test for 2013 Year 7
entry into the SEAL program at Box Hill High School and there were
more than 500 applications for Year 7 places.
Mrs Cohen notes that this was a 25 per cent increase on the previous
years’ candidature, and that the increase in number and calibre of
students sitting the test also meant that the cut-off score for entry to the
SEAL program rose by 20 points in one year. The school takes
approximately 75 students into the SEAL program. A small number of

14
 Getting started

high-achieving students who miss out on the SEAL program may be

placed on a waiting list.
Once the Year 7 enrolment intake has been finalised, the students sit
further testing, such as the Middle Years Achievement Test (MYAT) or
the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) series (see Appendix 1 for more
information on MYAT). This testing provides the school with comparable
information on the entire Year 7 cohort; allows the school to identify
students that require extension or extra learning assistance; and then
allows the school to monitor individual students’ literacy and numeracy
skills and their progress over time. This testing also allows the school to
identify the top-performing students from the mainstream Year 7 intake
who will require a more challenging program.
‘The SEAL program is not intended to have elite classes separating
high-performing students from regular students. All the students mix
in various subjects throughout their schooling. Academic excellence is
valued by the school, and all students benefit from that focus,’ Mrs
Cohen explains.
‘Box Hill High School is quite an academic school and some of the
children that come here are quite high-achieving students, but we want
everyone to perform as well as they can,’ she says.

15
Chapter 2 About the tests

Different kinds of scholarship and selection tests may use different

approaches. Some take what might be considered a more traditional approach,
testing students’ curriculum-based knowledge: facts and figures, vocabulary,
basic arithmetic and so forth. Scoring well on these types of tests requires
students to have a strong retention of content they have memorised previously.
A traditional geography test may require students to know the capital cities
of South America; a traditional science test may require students to memorise
the first 20 elements of the Periodic Table; and traditional mathematics test
may require students to recall the formula for the area of a circle.
Many other scholarship and selection tests, however, take an approach that
prioritises higher-order thinking skills. Such scholarship and selection tests
focus less on students’ content knowledge — the tests are not curriculum based.
Instead, such tests aim to assess students’ ability to reason, interpret, explain,
problem-solve and express ideas in different subject areas such as humanities,
mathematics and science.
As a very simple example, compare the two science questions at the top of
the following page.
The answer to Question 1 is something you either know or don’t know. If
you don’t know the answer, no matter how hard you think and despite how
much you know about rats, you simply can’t answer the question. The way to
know the answer is to read an article about rats and memorise the Latin names
of the most common varieties.

16
 About the tests

Q1. What is the Latin name for the black rat?

Q2. The European magpie (Pica pica), the Black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) and the
Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) are very similar-looking black and white birds native
to three different continents. Which pair is more closely related?

European Magpie Black-billed Magpie Australian magpie

The answer to Question 2 is something that you might also happen to

know or not know. The difference is that the answer to Question 2 can also be
‘reasoned’ and the more you know about science (in this case the scientific
classification system using binomial Latin names) the better your reasoning is
likely to be. In that sense, Question 2 is testing your scientific reasoning rather
than just your scientific knowledge, although obviously having good scientific
knowledge is a distinct advantage. The way to know the answer to this question
is to understand the principles and methodologies of scientific classification in
biology and be able to apply this knowledge to solving a given problem.
The answer to Question 1 is Rattus rattus. The answer to Question 2 is that
while European and Black-billed magpies are closely related, both belonging to
the genus Pica, the Australian magpie is not very closely related to either, being
a member of the genus Gymnorhina. This information required to answer
Question 2 is provided in the question; this question can be solved through
logical deduction even if the student didn’t already know the answer.
Because many scholarship and selection tests do not focus on a particular
set of facts and figures to be learned, the general consensus is that there is not
much to be gained from doing hundreds or thousands of practice questions.

17
Scholarship and Selection tests

Given that these kinds of tests are designed to test how well students reason,
interpret, explain, problem-solve and express ideas, this shouldn’t be surprising.
Other sections of this book make the point that to improve results, students
need to develop the kinds of skills and abilities that naturally develop at
different rates, at different times and to different extents in different children.
Chapter 3 of this book, ‘Developing skills and abilities’, looks at some ways of
helping students and parents to think about these abilities and focus on their
development.
That said, being prepared for and familiar with a test may help build
confidence and help a student to concentrate on the task at hand. Some students,
especially younger students, might never have sat a formal examination before,
while others may have done exams of various kinds but not in the format or
question style of a scholarship or selection test. Those students may well benefit
from familiarisation with the test that comes from attempting some practice
items and practice test forms. Others may benefit from getting a better sense of
what’s expected of them and a feel for the amount of time they have to address
the questions.
Scholarship and selection tests that take a critical-thinking approach are
often reasonably similar in the types of questions asked and the areas covered,
but they differ in detail of structure, timing and format. In particular some
scholarship and selection tests have different levels depending on the year level
into which the student is being selected. For more on the general structure and
format of a number of scholarship tests, see the Appendices in the back of this
book.
Scholarship and selection tests generally use two types of questions:
multiple-choice questions to test students’ understanding in humanities and in
maths and science; and open-ended questions, to test students’ written
expression. The next section discusses some of the special features of multiple-
choice questions and provides some general advice on strategies and approaches
to answering multiple-choice questions. Following sections discuss in more
detail the parts of the tests that use multiple-choice question formats —

18
 About the tests

humanities, and maths and science. The final section of this chapter looks at
open-ended, written expression questions.

Answering multiple-choice questions

Many scholarship and selection tests contain multiple-choice format sections
testing students’ thinking in humanities, mathematics and science. Although
the focus of these sections is to test your child’s ability to reason and understand,
it is useful for students to have some understanding of the multiple-choice
layout so that the format is not a distraction in any way. This is especially true
for younger students who may not have had much or any exposure to formal
testing.

Multiple-choice question structure

Multiple-choice questions present the student with a question and/or stimulus
and ask the student to choose one of a number of possible answers from a list
provided. Most commonly there are four possible answers given and they are
labelled A, B, C and D.
Some tests are made up of individual multiple-choice questions while others
feature questions that are arranged together around a common theme or
stimulus. This might mean, for example, that a student reads a short text or
looks at a picture or diagram and then answers a number of questions related to
that text or picture. These questions together make up a unit.
A typical multiple-choice question — whether alone or in a unit of work —
consists of up to five separate parts, as shown in the question on the following
page (note that this would be a very easy question on a scholarship or selection
test for primary students).
Some of the parts of the question, such as the heading, instruction and
stimulus, are often included only once in the test, section or unit.
The possible answers are known as the ‘options’. The correct answer is
called the ‘key’ (or just the ‘answer’). The other options, which are not correct,
are called ‘distractors’.

19
Scholarship and Selection tests

Heading Unit 1
Instruction Look at the following picture and choose the best answer from the list
below.
Stimulus

Question stem Which state covers the largest area?

Options A Western Australia
B South Australia
C Victoria
D Tasmania

Multiple-choice question strategy

It may seem that multiple-choice questions are easier than open-ended questions
because the answer is there on the page — but so are the distractors (the
incorrect options) and they are designed to be distracting. So what is the best
way of approaching a multiple-choice question?
Apart from the general advice that applies to all test questions — read the
question carefully, refer to the stimulus text or picture, and so on — there is no
one agreed best way of approaching this type of question.
Some teachers and books give the specific advice that the student should
first read over the questions, then read or view the stimulus, and then go back
to the questions — sort of approaching the question back to front. The idea

20
 About the tests

behind this is that knowing what the questions are in advance will help the
student look for the kind of information that they need when reading the text.
More traditionally, others give the advice that the student should start at the
start by carefully reading the instructions and the text, and then move on to the
questions, one at a time, referring back to the text as required.
In fact, successful test takers use both these approaches at different times
depending on the circumstances, including the type and length of the text or
stimulus, the number of questions in a unit, and even whether they are at the
beginning of the test with plenty of time or at the end of the test and trying to
answer a few more questions in the last minute. Practising some different
approaches to answering multiple-choice questions will give students confidence
to apply whatever approach seems best at the time when doing the real test.

‘Knocking out’
One strategy that is often talked about is the technique of ‘knocking out’ the
options that are clearly wrong. Although this strategy is not always the easiest
and most obvious way to find the best answer, it is a useful skill to think about
and practise because it can often give the student a start on finding the answer,
or help confirm that the student has the best answer when she isn’t quite sure.
Take the example question on the following page. To answer this question
the student could use her understanding of time difference to work out the answer
and then hunt for it in the list. Unfortunately, as many people know from experience,
calculating time differences — especially across the Pacific — can be very tricky
and confusing. Understanding that one of these options is the correct answer and
the other three are wrong, the student could start by knocking out the obviously
wrong ones and narrowing down the options. This should give her more confidence
in her final choice of the right answer.
Taking a look at this example question, from the stimulus it is plain that
there is a big time difference between Sydney and New York, not a small one.
Clearly then, option C is not right and can be knocked out. Option A also seems
obviously wrong because the stimulus makes it clear that the difference is not
simply 24 hours difference (i.e. the same time on a different day). That leaves
only two plausible options: B and D. So using this strategy the student has
already narrowed the field from four options to two options.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Heading Unit 4
Instruction Look at the following text and choose the correct answer from the list
below.
Stimulus When it is 9.00 am on Tuesday in Sydney, it is 7.00 pm the previous day in
New York City.

Sydney New York City

Question stem What time is it in Sydney, when it is 9.00 am on Thursday in New York City?
Options A 9.00 am on Wednesday
B 11.00 pm on Wednesday
C 10.00 am on Thursday
D 11.00 pm on Thursday

In this case, the remaining options provided are the same time of day —
11.00 pm — but different days: Wednesday or Thursday. So effectively we are
left with a much smaller problem to solve. Is New York City behind or in front of
Sydney? It seems fairly plain from the stimulus that New York City is behind
Sydney (‘… it is 7.00 pm the previous day in New York City’) so Sydney must be
ahead of New York City. That makes option D the only possible answer.
There are several benefits of this knock out strategy:
• It can save time by using the information in the question and the student’s
estimating skills to help make a choice or narrow down the choice.
• It can help the student double-check the result of an independent calculation.
• It can give the student a good start in making a complex calculation by
framing the likely range of answers (i.e. knocking out some obviously wrong
options leaving the student with a smaller number of options to choose from).
The real key to using this strategy is to think about it in a flexible way as an
effective tool to support and supplement the student’s normal approach to

22
 About the tests

reading the question and working out the answer. If the student can work out
the question quickly and easily, the strategy can be used to double-check. If the
question is a little harder, it can be used to narrow down the options. And
finally if the student really can’t figure out the answer, it can be used to help her
make an educated guess or start her on the right track.

The ‘best’ answer

Multiple-choice question instructions are often framed using the phrase ‘best
answer’ rather than ‘correct answer’. This can sometimes be confusing but is
important to think about.
The following is an example of a ‘best answer’ question:
Part name Example
Heading Unit 3
Instruction Read the following text and choose the best answer from the list below.
Stimulus The girls looked down at their teacher curled in a foetal position at the bottom of the
stairs.
‘Are you alright, Mr Smith?’ Abigail shouted in mock concern.
Leannah could barely contain her laughter. ‘Do you want us to call an ambulance?’
Question stem Which is the best answer? The girls’ attitude is:
Options A callous
B helpful
C cheerful
D boisterous

Some kind of argument could probably be made for all four options.
Leannah is on the verge of laughing, so is she cheerful? Both girls ask if the
teacher needs help, so are they helpful? Abigail shouts her question and Leannah
is nearly laughing so perhaps they are a bit boisterous. Despite these arguments,
the tone of the writing and some key words, such as ‘mock concern’, make it
clear that answer A, callous, is the best answer even if a (weak) case could be
argued for all of the other options.
Choosing the best answer requires a certain amount of inference and
informed judgement — something in itself that the question is designed to test.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Students in multiple choice tests must be prepared to be flexible and choose the
best answer even when they feel that the absolutely correct answer is not there
or that some of the distractors are partially correct.

Humanities and Reading Comprehension

Different scholarship tests have sections with different titles such as humanities,
comprehension, or reading and viewing. These are designed to test reasoning,
problem-solving, interpretation and so on through written and/or visual
materials. For ease of reference they will be referred to as ‘humanities’.
These sections require the student to read a piece of writing or view a
stimulus, such as a picture, map or diagram, and answer one or a series of
multiple-choice questions.

Types of humanities questions

Most people are familiar with the idea of reading comprehension questions.
Reading, understanding, interpreting and applying understandings of written
and visual texts is really a complex process made up of many different and
overlapping skills and understandings. At the most basic level, there is ‘decoding’,
actually reading the letters and working out what the words are. Of course
reading the words isn’t the same as knowing them. For example, many people
who could read the word ‘ultimogeniture’ and say it out loud quite correctly
wouldn’t have any idea what it means. So vocabulary is also a reading skill.
Similarly, understanding the way words combine in phrases and sentences
to make meaning is also a skill — we don’t write words out in isolation. Just as
important are the skills related to connecting ideas across text, like
understanding that ‘it’ or ‘that dog’ refers to something mentioned before or
after in the text. Then there are a range of skills and understandings relating to
inferring and interpreting from both what is in the text and what is not.
Good humanities tests deliberately target a range of these kinds of skills in
order to get a good picture of the student’s overall ability. Scholarship and
selection tests are designed in particular to assess the student’s skills at
reasoning and interpreting texts and applying their understanding of the texts
to solving problems. Knowing a little more about the ways that humanities

24
 About the tests

questions target these different kinds of skills may help students think about
their approach to answering questions and preparing for the test.
Professionals working in the area of literacy development have considered
lots of ways to think about the different categories of reading comprehension
skills. One simple way of categorising the skills targeted by a humanities
question is to think about whether the question asks the student to find
information directly stated in the text, or whether the student needs to interpret
the text in some way to answer the question.
The first kind of question requires the student to go to the text or picture
and locate or ‘retrieve’ a piece of information, something that is directly stated
or displayed. The second type requires the student to interpret the information
in the text or picture in order to answer the question. This second category can
be further broken down depending on whether the student is interpreting from
some directly stated information, or inferring an understanding even though
the information is not directly stated.
The diagram below sets out this simple framework.

Reading Text

Retrieving Interpreting
directly stated
information

directly stated by making

information inferences

There is a certain amount of overlap between these categories and no

question can test a single, isolated skill, but most questions in a humanities test
could be fairly easily slotted into this framework.

Examples and answers

The three questions in Example Unit 1 are of a similar level of difficulty, but
finding an answer for each question brings different reading skills to the fore.

25
Scholarship and Selection tests

Example Unit 1

The following two reviews of a new movie Nothing Left to Burn appeared in the Spring Hills
High Gazette. Read the reviews and choose the best answer to the questions below.

The movie sounded as if it would be a thrilling mystery, with kidnaps and twists, but the
story was predictable and took no unexpected turns. The main character, Sonata, was
interesting—she was a real drama queen—but the other characters were boring and
predictable. This made the mystery easy to solve. I have enjoyed other movies directed by
Natasha Mailman but this one was too simple to hold my attention. Maybe it was for younger
kids. I give it one star.
Callum Carmichael, Year 7

I enjoyed this movie. I thought the main character was clever. Sonata likes to be the centre
of attention and she often is, because the rest of the characters can’t keep up with her. The
story was really exciting and the audience is kept guessing until the very end. I think it is
Natasha Mailman’s best movie yet! I give it four stars!
Bree Shun, Year 8
Question 1
Who directed Nothing Left to Burn?
A Sonata
B Natasha Mailman
C Callum Carmichael
D Bree Shun

Question 2
What did Bree think about the movie?
A She thought it was sad.
B She thought it was boring.
C She did not know what was going to happen next.
D She could easily tell what was going to happen next.

Question 3
How did Callum feel about the movie when he had finished watching it?
A excited
B interested
C embarrassed
D disappointed

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 About the tests

Think about the simple categorisation of reading comprehension types

discussed above. Which one of these could be described as ‘retrieving directly
stated information’? Question 1 asks a factual, information type question, ‘Who
directed the movie?’ To answer the question, the student goes to the text and
finds the sentence ‘I have enjoyed other movies directed by Natasha Mailman
but this one was too simple to hold my attention’ and retrieves the correct
answer: B Natasha Mailman.
By contrast, to answer the other two questions, the student needs to interpret
some aspect of the text. Question 2 asks, ‘What did Bree think about the movie?’ To
answer the question, the student goes to the text and finds a number of sentences
and phrases that contain explicit expressions of Bree’s opinion of the movie:

‘I enjoyed this movie.’

‘The story was really exciting and the audience is kept guessing until the
very end.’

In interpreting these explicitly stated opinions, the student can determine

that answer C is the correct option. This is the kind of process that is referred to
as interpreting from directly stated information.
Question 3 asks the student, ‘How did Callum feel about the movie when he
had finished watching it?’ Although Callum never directly writes about how he
felt at the end of the movie, the student can infer his feelings from the other
things he says, for example:

‘The movie sounded as if it would be a thrilling mystery, with kidnaps and

twists, but the story was predictable and took no unexpected turns.’

‘I have enjoyed other movies directed by Natasha Mailman but this one was
too simple to hold my attention.’

From this the student could infer that Callum did not feel excited, interested
or embarrassed, but rather disappointed (D), even if he never says this directly.
This is an example of what is referred to as interpreting by making inferences.
On the following page is another example unit. As you answer the questions
see if you can work out what type each question is.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Example Unit 2

Read the following text and answer the questions below.

Constellations are imaginary pictures people make in the night sky by joining stars together.
The constellation Crux (Latin for cross) is the smallest of the constellations but also one
of the most distinctive. It is more commonly known as the Southern Cross. Acrux, at the
bottom of the cross, is the principal star in Crux and it is the 14th brightest star in the whole
sky.

In the past, explorers in the Southern Hemisphere used Crux to guide them. They used
Crux to locate the South Pole because the Southern Hemisphere does not have a bright
polar star. A line that is drawn from Gacrux through Acrux points south. Following this line
for approximately 4.5 times the distance between the two stars gives a point that is almost
directly over the South Pole. One advantage of using Crux to locate the South Pole is that
Crux can be seen in the night sky for most of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. However,
Crux cannot be seen from most places in the Northern Hemisphere.

Gacrux

Delta Crucis

Hadar
Mimosa

Rigil Kentaurus
Acrux

The diagram above shows Crux and two other stars that are part of the nearby
constellation Centaurus. These are the two pointer stars, Rigil Kentaurus and Hadar. They
are often used to find Crux since a line drawn between these two stars points to Crux.

Question 1
Southern Cross is another name for
A Crux.
B Acrux.
C Gacrux.
D Rigil Kentaurus.

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 About the tests

Question 2
How does Crux help people to find the South Pole?
A A line through the pointer stars points south.
B A line from the top to the bottom of the cross points south.
C A line between Gacrux and the pointer star Hadar points south.
D A line between Mimosa and the pointer star Rigil Kentaurus points south.

Question 3
Long ago people made up stories about the constellations, but there are few stories about Crux
that come from people who lived in the Northern Hemisphere. What does the text suggest is
the most likely reason for this?
A The stars in Crux are not very bright.
B Most of the people could not see Crux.
C Crux does not resemble a person or an animal.
D The cross shape can be made from many different stars.

Question 1 requires the student to retrieve directly stated information, ‘It is

more commonly known as the Southern Cross.’ So the correct answer is A.
Question 2 also requires the student to use directly stated information — in
this case instructions on how to find the South Pole — but requires some
interpretation because the correct answer, B, refers to the physical structure of
the constellation (top and bottom) rather than the names of the stars which are
used in the text. The student needs to read the text and match the information
to the diagram to answer the question.
Finally, Question 3 requires the student to both interpret and infer. The text
doesn’t talk about the tradition of making up stories, but it does give a few clues
that would allow the student to infer the correct answer B. From sentences and
phrases such as ‘Crux cannot be seen from most places in the Northern
Hemisphere’, ‘The constellation of Crux … is one of the most distinctive’ and
‘Acrux is the 14th brightest star in the whole sky’, the student could infer that
not being able to see Crux is the likely reason that Northern Hemisphere people
didn’t make up many stories about it, rather than it not being very bright or
distinctive.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Thinking about the different kinds of skills required to answer these

different types of questions, it tends to be true that questions requiring
interpretation by making inferences are harder than questions requiring
interpretation of directly stated information, which in turn are harder than
questions requiring the student to retrieve directly stated information. However,
there are a number of factors influencing what makes a question easy or hard for
any particular student, not just the type of skill required to answer it. It is also
worth remembering that scholarship tests, being tests designed to assess a
student’s ability to reason, interpret, explain, problem-solve and express ideas at
a high level, tend to emphasise questions requiring interpretation and inference
and tend to have questions and texts at a more difficult level.

Mathematics and Science

Depending on the test and test level, most scholarship and selection tests have
a multiple-choice section on mathematics or mathematics and science.
The mathematics tests tend to focus on two different aspects of mathematics.
The first aspect is how well the student can work with numbers, do calculations
(add, subtract, multiply, divide), understand and make measurements, think
about chance and probability and work with spatial ideas. In some curriculum
documents these are the basic subject areas: number, measurement, space,
chance and data, and algebra. The other aspect is how well the student can
solve mathematical problems and apply mathematical ideas. In some curriculum
documents this is referred to as ‘working mathematically’.
In the worked examples given in the next section, you will see that often
these two aspects are combined within the same unit and even within the same
question. In particular, applying mathematical ideas and problem-solving often
require calculations, measurements and estimates as the first step.
For those tests and levels that also include science questions, there is a similar
approach in that the questions test the students’ knowledge of science and their
ability to ‘work scientifically’, applying scientific thinking to solve problems.
Like humanities questions, mathematics and science questions can be
independent or arranged in a unit, with a stimulus such as a diagram or a table,
and several related questions.

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 About the tests

Examples and answers

Although they require some fairly difficult number calculations, the questions
in the following example unit don’t really require any sophisticated problem-
solving or application of mathematical or scientific knowledge.

Example Unit 1

The Great Artesian Basin is the world’s largest and deepest artesian basin. It underlies
parts of four states, as follows: 673 000 square kilometres in Queensland, 216 000 square
kilometres in South Australia, 130 000 square kilometres in New South Wales and 62 000
square kilometres in the Northern Territory.

Question 1
The two states with the largest areas in the Great Artesian Basin together contain
approximately what percentage of its total area?
A 80 per cent
B 70 per cent
C 60 per cent
D 50 per cent

Question 2
Each day roughly 150 000 000 litres of water flows to the surface from the Great Artesian
Basin. This means an average over the whole basin of approximately
A 140 litres per square kilometre.
B 280 litres per square kilometre.
C 14 000 litres per square kilometre.
D 28 000 litres per square kilometre.

Let’s take a look at the questions in more detail. Answering Question 1

requires a number of steps. The student needs to identify which are the two
states with the largest areas in the basin. She needs to calculate their combined
area. She needs to calculate the total area of the basin. Finally she needs to
calculate what proportion of the basin these two states make up. These
calculations require the student to use a range of number and measurement
skills.

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As a parent who might have been educated in a traditional mathematics

classroom your instinct might be to follow a process something like the
following:
1. Find the total area of the Great Artesian Basin by adding together the four
areas:

673 000
216 000
130 000
+ 62 000
1 081 000

2. Identify the two largest areas — Queensland (673 000 square kilometres)
and South Australia (216 000 square kilometres) — and add them together:

673 000
+ 216 000
889 000

3. Determine the proportion of the whole made up by the top two areas by
dividing the top two by the whole:

889 000
÷ 1 081 000
0.82

0.82 is another way of expressing 82 per cent so option A is the best answer.
Nowadays, children are taught to engage a range of problem-solving skills,
and this is a key area assessed in scholarship and selection tests. In this case,
rather than starting with this series of potentially tricky calculations, the
student could begin by using their estimating skills to find the best answer or at
least knock out some of the obviously wrong options and narrow down the
field.
Start by estimating the total area of the basin — about 700 000 plus about
200 000 plus about 100 000 plus about 100 000 equals just over 1 000 000. Then
estimate the combined area of the top two states — about 700 000 plus about

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 About the tests

200 000 equals about 900 000. 900 000 out of 1 000 000 is 90 per cent so it seems
pretty clear that the answer must be much more than 50 per cent, 60 per cent or
70 per cent. On that evidence the student might feel confident to choose option
A as the best answer or might confirm her estimation with the series of more
exact calculations presented above.
If the student does then go back and do the precise calculations and
comes up with 82 per cent, she would be more confident that her calculation
was correct. On the other hand, if something goes wrong with the calculation
and she ends up with a result of 40 per cent, she would know to check over
her thinking (either her estimations or her additions and divisions) and try
again.
Estimation is a very important mathematical tool — especially when you
consider that scholarship tests often allow only about one minute per
question.
Question 2 requires an understanding of how to calculate a ratio, in this
case another potentially tricky long division calculation, dividing 150 000 000
litres by 1 081 000 square kilometres to come up with an answer of litres per
square kilometre. If the student did proceed with the long-division calculation
they would end up with the figure 139 litres per square kilometre. Option A is
the closest so that is the best answer.
On the other hand, using estimating skills the student might divide the
amount of water — 150 000 000 litres or 150 million litres — by her estimate of
the total Great Artesian Basin area — 1 000 000 square kilometres or 1 million
square kilometres. A million divided by a million cancels down to 1 so the
result must be something like 150. That makes options D and C look impossibly
high. Options A and B are the only answers expressed in the hundreds and in
fact option A is very close to the estimate of 150.
Again, if a student had time, she might take both approaches as a way of
confirming she has the right answer.
The next unit has some simple examples of questions that require the
student to work with numbers, do calculations, understand and make
measurements, and make estimates, and to use those calculations to apply her
understanding and solve some simple problems.

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Example Unit 2

Reuben is using a table to convert from an old unit called pounds to grams.
Pounds Grams Pounds Grams
0.1 45 1.1 495
0.2 90 1.2 540
0.3 135 1.3 585
0.4 180 1.4 630
0.5 225 1.5 675
0.6 270 1.6 720
0.7 315 1.7 765
0.8 360 1.8 810
0.9 405 1.9 855
1.0 450 2.0 900

Question 1
500 grams is closest to
A 1.0 pounds.
B 1.1 pounds.
C 1.2 pounds.
D 1.3 pounds.

Question 2
Half a pound is closest to
A 125 grams.
B 225 grams.
C 325 grams.
D 425 grams.

Question 3
Two pounds is closest to
A 0.09 kilograms.
B 0.9 kilograms.
C 9.0 kilograms.
D 90.0 kilograms.

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 About the tests

For Question 1 the student needs to know how to use a table to look up a
value and then to do some estimating or rounding off. A small twist is that
when she looks at the table for 500 grams, she finds that there is no entry for
500. Her task is to find the closest entry. Thinking about close in terms of ‘a little
more’ or ‘a little less’, the student might narrow the search down to 495 or 540
grams. Thinking more about which one of these is closest, the student should
choose 495, which she can then convert to 1.1 pounds (best answer B).
For Question 2 the student also has to look up a value in the table. The small
twist in this one is that the values in the table are decimal whereas the question
asks about ‘half’ a pound. That means that before the student can look up the
answer, she has to understand that ‘half’ is the same as ‘0.5’. Once that’s solved,
the student looks up 0.5 pounds and finds the value of grams, 225, which leads
her to choosing the answer B.
Question 3 also has a conversion task in it. This time the student needs to
understand the relationship between grams and kilograms. Using the table, it’s
easy enough to determine that 2 pounds is the equivalent of 900 grams.
Unfortunately the possible answers given are reported in kilograms not grams.
Before choosing an answer the student will have to convert 900 grams into
kilograms. This of course requires the student to know something about the
relationship between grams and kilograms. She might ‘know’ this as a fact
(1000 grams equals 1 kilogram) or she may be able to infer it from her general
knowledge of measurement terminology (i.e. the suffix ‘kilo-’ usually means a
thousand, as in kilometre, kilojoule, kilobyte and kilogram). From this
knowledge there are a number of ways to do the conversion. Three possibilities
are:
• convert the grams to kilograms by dividing the number of grams by 1000
• draw a number line with grams on one side and kilograms on the other to
match 900 grams to 0.9 kilograms
• understand that 900 grams is just slightly less than 1000 grams and that
1000 grams is a kilogram so the correct answer must be just slightly below 1
kilogram. Either way, the best answer looks like B and the student may well
try a couple of these strategies to double check her answer.
Just as with the reading comprehension questions, there are a lot of separate
skills and understandings that the student needs to bring to answer these

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questions. Knowing how to do the basic calculations and having other

mathematical and scientific knowledge is important, but so too is the ability to
apply that knowledge to thinking out and solving problems.

Abstract Reasoning
Depending on the test purpose and testing level, scholarship and selection tests
may have an abstract reasoning component. This component assesses student
ability to use non-verbal reasoning skills. Such reasoning is widely applicable
across the curriculum, and beyond school, and is related to certain scholastic
outcomes. Abstract items are particularly useful when assessment needs to be
done independently of language skills.
Abstract reasoning items require students to identify relationships and
rules that underlie given sequences and patterns, and apply these to find the
option (usually out of a choice of four or five) that most logically and simply fits
next in a sequence or into a gap in a pattern. Abstract reasoning items require
students to solve problems by identifying and applying patterns, rules and
relationships. Generation of appropriate hypotheses and evaluation of evidence
are important skills in such tasks. Elements in patterns are usually presented in
diagrammatic form, but in some cases numbers or letters are used in the
sequence or pattern.
Two common types of item are ‘Next in Sequence’ and ‘Complete the
Pattern’. A variant of the Next in Sequence type is ‘Middle of Sequence’. These
are described in what follows.

Next in sequence
For a sequence of four diagrams that change according to a particular rule or
rules, it is necessary to identify the option that most logically comes next (i.e.
the fifth diagram). Items can focus on the following:
• progressive changes in size, shape, pattern and orientation
• changes in the relationship between elements, such as relative position
• numerical rules
• a combination or disassociation of elements.

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 About the tests

Middle of sequence
This sequence follows the same rules as Next in Sequence but the five diagrams
are given out of order and the correct order needs to be determined.

Complete the pattern

For a diagram made of segments, it is necessary to identify the option that most
logically fits into the blank segment area. Items can focus on the following:
• analogy between parts of a pattern
• reflection symmetry
• progressive changes in size, shape, pattern and orientation
• changes in the relationship between elements, such as relative position
• numerical rules
• geometric pattern completion
• a combination or disassociation of elements.
Abstract item difficulty can be varied according to the number, type,
subtlety and complexity of elements, patterns, rules and relationships, and by
combining item types.

Examples and answers

Next in Sequence
The four shapes below form a sequence going from left to right. From the four
available options, you need to choose the shape that comes next in the
sequence.

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The pattern has two simple elements, a cross and a dot, but can also be seen
as a single combined element.
The cross and dot together can be seen as rotating anticlockwise by 45
degrees from one shape to the next. Hence, the fifth shape in the sequence is
given in Alternative D.
Notice that the pattern can also be seen as the dot rotating anticlockwise by
45 degrees whilst the cross alternates between the vertical and diagonal positions,
from one shape to the next. This interpretation leads to the same answer.

Complete the pattern

The large square shape shown below contains nine smaller square shapes.

A C

B D

Look across the top row of three small squares from left to right. You should
be able to see that the shapes within the first and second squares can join
together to produce the shape in the right-hand square (i.e. two L-shapes join to
produce a square).
Similarly, across the second row of small squares, the shapes in the first and
second squares can join together to produce the shape in the right-hand square
(i.e. two half circles join together to produce a circle).
The rule is that the shapes in the first and second squares from the left
combine to produce the shape in the right-hand square.

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 About the tests

Now look across the bottom row of shapes. The shape within the middle
square must combine with the shape in the left-hand square to produce the
shape in the right-hand square. Since a triangle is in the right-hand square, the
answer is A.

Written Expression
Many scholarship and selection tests include one or two sections that require a
response to an open-ended question. These sections are called ‘written
expression’ or ‘writing’.
In these sections there is usually a visual stimulus, such as a photo or
cartoon, or written stimulus, such as a statement or a short passage from a novel
or newspaper report, which the student will be asked to consider. The stimulus
may include a combination of visual and written elements. The question will
provide an instruction on how to complete the task.
The task might require the student to write a short response (a few words or
sentences) or a longer piece of writing (several sentences or paragraphs)
depending on the level of the test. Often there is no specific length indicated,
although usually a page or two of ruled A4 paper will be provided. It is more
important to write well than to write a lot.
Sometimes there are also some suggestions about what sort of things the
student should consider in terms of style or approach. Typically in scholarship
and selection tests there are one or two written expression questions that allow
students to use different styles of writing to express an opinion, write a
description, tell a story, relate a conversation, describe a scene or situation in
poetry or prose, outline or explain something, express an opinion or make an
argument.
Below are some examples of questions.

Example 1
Stimulus Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day.
Instruction Write a story about the weather.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Example 2
Stimulus

Instruction Use this picture as the basis for a piece of writing.

You may write in any way you wish.

Example 3
Stimulus Think of something about which you have a strong opinion.
The issue could relate to some aspect of your home, school, community or society
as a whole.
Instruction Write an essay which could persuade somebody who does not share your opinion
to change his or her mind and see things your way.
Your writing will be judged on what you have to say, how well you organise
and present your point of view and how clearly and effectively you express
yourself.

What the test is looking for

Generally speaking, the test is assessing the student’s ability to write in a clear,
lively, vivid and expressive way that expresses her thoughts and feelings in
words. It is important that the piece of writing is clearly a response to the
stimulus and instruction and is not seen to be rehearsed or rehashed from a
pre-prepared piece of writing. Writing pieces that are not closely based on the
stimulus risk being penalised no matter how well written.

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 About the tests

The following list outlines some of the issues that examiners may consider
when marking written expression tests (ACER, 2012).

Thought and content

The quality of what is said in the piece of writing.
• What is made of and developed from the task.
• The kinds of thoughts and ideas presented in response to the task.

Structure and organisation

The quality of the structure and organisation developed to respond to the topic.
• The shape and form of the writing piece.
• The sequence and cohesion of the writing piece.

Expression, style and mechanics

The quality of the language used to organise and present what is said.
• The effectiveness and appropriateness of the language.
• The expressiveness and fluency of the language.
• The control of the ‘mechanics’ of English (grammar, punctuation, sentence
structure).
So, simply speaking, the examiners are looking for the quality of the ideas,
the use of structure to present those ideas in a compelling and interesting way
and the effectiveness and quality of the language used to deliver the ideas and
structure. A student can get a good mark with a written piece that contains
compelling and interesting ideas but has style deficiencies and some poor
grammar — but an even better mark can be achieved if the grammar and style
are excellent. The other way around is probably not true. No matter how well-
crafted and error-free the writing is, if it doesn’t contain any strong and
interesting ideas and doesn’t relate to the task, it probably won’t score well.

A note on the examples

The following sections contain some examples of common question types and
example responses. These worked examples are intended to help you get an
idea of the type of questions scholarship tests ask, as well as something about
what the examiners are looking for in an answer.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

Please note that for clarity, the responses provided have been corrected for
major errors of spelling and grammar. It would be unrealistic to expect all
students to write in this error-free way under exam conditions. Note also that
these responses are not intended to provide a ‘standard’ for what a student
needs to produce in order to get a high score. The level and length of the writing
produced by students differs considerably depending on the test and year level.

Examples and answers

The following example is a typical written expression question. These responses
are quite short and intended only to illustrate some of the issues discussed
above.

Written Expression Example 1

Look at the following question and then read the three responses.
Stimulus

Instruction Use this picture as the basis for a piece of writing.

You may write in any way you wish.

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 About the tests

Response 1

It is a room in an old house. The house is now a museum and people can go to see some
interesting furniture and other items.

In the corner of this room there is a grandfather clock, a rocking chair, a table with a
book and some reading glasses, and a candle on the windowsill. There is a painting on the
wall in a metal frame. The clock, chair and table are made of beautiful polished wood.

The room is set up to show how a person long ago may have spent an evening relaxing
in the chair and reading a book by candle light.

Response 2

I couldn’t wait until we arrived at the museum! Mum had packed the sandwiches and a drink
and Rachel, my sister, had brought her camera so we could take pictures. We needed the
pictures because Mr Wright had set us a project to complete. The topic was ‘Life in 1900’.

When we got to the museum we bought our tickets and waited in line to get into the
exhibition. I was hungry because I didn’t have any breakfast so Mum said why don’t we wait
for the crowd to go down and eat our sandwiches straight away. We went to a little park
right next to the museum to eat the sandwiches. The sandwiches were delicious! While we
ate we talked about how exciting the exhibition would be.

After the sandwiches we played with a ball that my sister had. We got very hot so we
went across the road to get a drink from the shop. The sun was warm so we lay down in the
shade to have a rest.

After a while Mum woke us up and said it was time to go back to the museum. ‘No!’ I
screamed as I saw the sign hanging up. ‘Closed.’ There was no use, the museum was closed
on Saturday afternoon!

Anyway, we went to the museum the next day and that’s when we took this great
picture. I got an ‘A’ for the project!

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Response 3

That evening arriving back at the old house, it was quiet and lonely. Coming into the sitting
room I could hear the gentle ticking of his clock rolling across the floor, calling out: ‘It’s time.
It’s time.’ But no-one was coming tonight to keep the old clock company, to rock out the
seconds, back and forth. No-one was coming to light the candle and cast a warm glow on
the clock’s old face.

Still the clock ticked: ‘It’s time. It’s time.’

Before getting to the responses, let’s take a look at the question. There is a
picture — the stimulus — and an instruction. The instruction is quite broad. It
asks that the student write a response related to the stimulus and says that any
form of writing is acceptable.
The three pieces of writing above are markedly different responses. None
is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but you (and the examiners) may consider one or the
other to be worth a higher or lower score. What do they have in common?
Firstly, importantly, they all take the stimulus picture as the basis of the piece
of writing. Another thing in common is that all three pieces are written in
fluent and well-controlled English and use a range of appropriate vocabulary
and syntax. The overall structure of the pieces is well-shaped and cohesive.
What’s different? The first piece is a description of the picture, while the
second and third are imaginative stories based on the picture as a stimulus.
Another important difference is that while the second and third pieces take the
stimulus as a starting point and then develop and express some ideas and
feelings of the writer, the first piece really only describes what can be seen
directly in the stimulus picture. Given that, think about how an examiner might
score these responses according to the framework on page 41. All three pieces
would probably score well on structure and organisation, and on expression,
style and mechanics. In terms of thought and content, Response 1 probably
wouldn’t score as highly as Response 2 or Response 3.
This is not to suggest that imaginative writing will always score higher than
descriptive writing. Rather, it’s important to understand that ‘accuracy’ of
language is not all that is required of a response.

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 About the tests

Thinking again about Response 1, how could the student, having chosen to
write in a descriptive style, have gained a higher score for thought and content?
One way might have been to take a broader view, describe more of what is not
seen in the picture. The piece does start to describe something about the broader
setting, when the student writes, ‘The house is now a museum and people can
go to see some interesting furniture and other items.’ Perhaps this aspect could
be explored further: What else is in the museum? What is its purpose? Who
goes there? Why is this part of the museum pictured? Why do we need
museums like this? And so on. The student should think about her own
thoughts, feelings, knowledge and experience of the world that can be brought
to the writing so that the stimulus is the starting point for the piece of writing
and not the only thing the writing addresses.
Looking at Response 2 and Response 3, the strength of the pieces is not that
they are imagined stories, but that the imagined stories have some lively and
vivid ideas that create interest and draw the reader in. In terms of thought and
content, although it is a very short piece, Response 3 is a very sophisticated
piece of thinking and writing. In reading the piece, the reader is intrigued: Who
is the narrator? Why does she feel so alone? Who is the person who usually sits
in the chair? Why isn’t the person there tonight?

Written Expression Example 2

Look at the following question and then read the two responses on the following
page.
Stimulus We live in a throwaway society. Nothing is built to last.
Instruction Use this statement as the basis for a piece of writing.
Your writing will be judged on:
• what you have to say
• how well you organise and structure what you have to say
• how clearly and effectively you express yourself.

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Response 1

I very much agree with the statement that we live in a throwaway society.

Firstly, everywhere you look you can see people throwing away rubbish, food
containers, plastic bags and more. Students buy a new phone or iPod this week but by next
week they already want a better one.

Secondly, a long time ago only kings and queens had a lot of possessions. Ordinary
people didn’t have much so they always looked after their things very carefully. If someone
broke something they would take it to the repairer. Nowadays, if something is broken they
just throw it away.

Thirdly, now with modern technology we can make things cheaply in places like China.
Even children can afford to buy lots of things just for fun and when they get bored they throw
them away. That’s why they also think that nothing is built to last.

So that’s why I agree that we live in a throwaway society.

Response 2

When people think of a throwaway society, they often think about the plastic bags, drink
bottles and take-away containers that people throw in our streets, rivers and beaches. But
the throwaway society is more than just rubbish in the street.

Years ago the things we owned were built to last. Houses, cars and clothes were very
expensive and they had to last for years. Now even things like computers and televisions
are so cheap that it’s easier to buy a new one if they break than repair them. Even school
children buy a new game or pair of trainers every time a new brand comes out and just throw
away the old ones.

Even people and friends are ‘easy come, easy go’. On Facebook people compete to see
who has more friends even if you haven’t even met half the people. If you lose any of your
real friends you can always get another hundred Facebook friends!

Everything is getting much faster and new fashions and trends are always coming
around the corner. If a kid says that your trainers aren’t any good, you ask your parents to
buy a new pair even if they aren’t worn out.

So this is why I believe firmly that we live in a throwaway society. If we want to leave
something in this world for our grandchildren, we should think again about how we live.

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 About the tests

In some ways, both of these responses are fairly similar. In both cases the
writer has responded to the question with a fairly standard persuasive or
argumentative style essay. Each essay uses paragraphs to arrange the ideas. The
first paragraph introduces the topic and seeks to present the writer’s opinion.
The next three or four paragraphs present an idea and then illustrate that idea.
Finally, the last paragraph summarises and concludes.
In terms of ideas, both of the essays try to make a similar argument: that
just as we have come to see goods as disposable, so we have come to see other
aspects of our lives as disposable. Each of the responses contains plenty of
interesting ideas that the writer has brought to the topic and uses language in
an appropriate, fluent and accurate way. Both writers have written a lot, and the
writer of Response 1 has demonstrated significant knowledge of a broad sweep
of history.
One of the main differences between the two responses is what might be
called the ‘thread’ of the argument. Looking in detail at the writing, Response 1
tries to make an argument based around a significant shift in behaviour and
attitude from old times to modern times. The thread of the argument is that as
material goods have become cheaper and more available through time, our
general attitudes have become more and more short-term and disposable. The
argument is illustrated in the table below:
Paragraph 1 Introduction
Paragraph 2 Rubbish
Paragraph 3 Old times vs. modern times
Paragraph 4 Cheap throwaway goods
Paragraph 5 Conclusion

The writer uses a lot of explicit structural markers (‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, etc.)
although it’s not so clear that each of these paragraphs introduces a new
supporting idea for the argument. Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 essentially make the
same point — nowadays people are willing to throw things away because they
are cheap and plentiful. It’s also not clear that the conclusion is drawn from the
evidence presented.
By contrast, Response 2 makes this argument about cheap material goods
fairly succinctly in just one paragraph, and then goes on to pursue the theme as

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it appears in other areas of our lives. In fact the thread of the argument in
Response 2 is more that the disposability of goods is a metaphor for many
changes that have occurred in our society.
Paragraph 1 Introduction
Paragraph 2 Material goods
Paragraph 3 Relationships
Paragraph 4 Culture and ideas
Paragraph 5 Conclusion

So although on the surface Response 1 uses paragraphs and structural

markers in a fairly standard way to provide structure to the writing, the ideas
in the essay lack overall organisation and development. By contrast, the writer
of Response 2 has thought about the central argument she wants to make —
‘the throwaway society is more than just rubbish in the street’ — and how to
support it with arguments and examples. Each of the key arguments is presented
in a paragraph with supporting evidence. Finally, the conclusion does much
more than mechanically summarise the argument by attempting to frame the
importance and value of what has been argued.

Tips for students writing test responses

• Think before you write. Don’t try to make it up as you go along.

• Don’t try to do too much. Keep track of the time.

• Look for something definite to say.

• Try to give the piece a direction that unfolds or develops. Try to think of the piece
as a whole.

• Try to write what you know and feel. Be honest and tell the truth.

• Don’t try to repeat stories from other sources.

• Don’t go too far and make your writing exaggerated or highly dramatic, but try to
find precise or vivid words when they are appropriate.

• Keep the reader in mind. It will be an adult, and that should influence what you
write and how you write it.

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 About the tests

Case study: Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane, Queensland

The Anglican Church Grammar School, ‘Churchie’, is an independent

boys’ school catering to about 1800 students from Reception to Year 12,
including around 160 boarders. Churchie comprises the Preparatory
School for students from Reception to Year 6; the Middle School for
Years 7, 8 and 9; and the Senior School for Years 10, 11 and 12.
Churchie offers cooperative testing for students seeking scholarships
for entry into Years 7, 8, 10 and 11. Each year, approximately 80 students
sit the scholarship test. On average, the school offers fewer than 10
scholarships per year. The school offers full and partial scholarships to
cover between 25 and 100 per cent of the fees for attending the school
from Year 7 entry to the end of Year 12.
The school sets its own cut-off score for scholarship consideration.
Students who achieve above the cut-off are almost certain to be offered
scholarships, while students who do not reach the cut-off are very
unlikely to be considered.
Deputy Headmaster (Academic), Dr Dirk Wellham, explains the
school’s scholarship selection process.
‘We rely on the scholarship test for awarding all of our academic
scholarships,’ Dr Wellham says.
‘We’ve got a reasonably high cut-off score, and because we very
rarely go below the cut-off, the number of scholarships we offer may
change from year to year. This year we offered relatively few scholarships
for students going into Year 7 next year,’ Dr Wellham explains.
The school’s scholarship test cut-off score applies to students’ overall
scores across all sections of the test; however, the school may make an
exception to the cut-off score if a student has scored exceptionally well
in one section of the test.
‘We have found that literacy performance is a key determiner of
academic performance, so we do look very closely at that result,’ Dr
Wellham says.
‘But, some students, for example, some students with English as a
second language, may do very well in numeracy, but not so well in

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literacy, and therefore they don’t reach our cut-off. We do occasionally

offer a scholarship to a student who is below our cut-off based on the
quality of a numeracy result, where we believe the student has a strong
work ethic and we can support him to develop his literacy skills,’ he says.
While Churchie selects students for scholarship consideration based
solely on the results of the scholarship test, the school also looks at
students’ school reports, meets the student and parents and considers
financial need and other individual circumstances when deciding what
percentage of scholarship to offer individual students.
‘If a student does well on the scholarship test, we’re going to talk to
him about a scholarship. We might then fine-tune what we offer an
individual student based on other factors. We tend to offer the top-
performing boys scholarships to cover 50 or 75 per cent of the fees,
because we want the parents to contribute to our school as well, in
partnership — but we do also offer full scholarships,’ Dr Wellham says.
‘One excellent example from recent years is a boy who entered the
school at Year 10 on a 100-per-cent scholarship, which we offered because
he was a high-quality student who came from a supportive family with a
single mother on a low income. That scholarship made the difference of
getting him into our school, and that boy went on to become Dux of the
school,’ he says.
The school conducts annual reviews of the attitude, effort and
academic performance of scholarship recipients.
The school also monitors scholarship recipients’ final year results, in
Queensland referred to as Overall Position (OP). Students’ OPs indicate
their rank in an order of all Queensland students based on their overall
achievement in Year 12 subjects. Students are placed in one of 25 bands
from the highest, OP1, which represents the top two per cent of students
in the state, through to the lowest, OP25.
Dr Wellham says that Churchie has found the scholarship test to be
a good predictor of students’ final year performance.
‘Our scholarship boys’ OP mean is 3.5, across 130 or so scholarship
recipients who have graduated from Churchie over the past 12 years,’ he says.

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Chapter 3 Developing skills and
abilities

This chapter provides a whole range of advice that may be helpful for a student
to prepare for a scholarship or selection test. Each student will develop at a
different rate, have a different learning style and have an individual set of
interests and abilities — just as each parent will.
As mentioned in the Introduction, many parents feel they need strong
advice and clear instructions on how to help their child prepare. This section of
the book in particular takes a direct tone, rather than couching statements in
qualifications and disclaimers. For simplicity’s sake, it is more likely to say,
‘Read to your child’ than to say, ‘There is some evidence that reading to your
child may have a positive effect on your child’s literacy levels, although this is
the subject of some debate in the academic community.’
Having said that, the aim of this chapter is not to tell you what to do, but to
provide students and parents with a variety of ideas, from which you may
choose those which resonate with you.
Preparing for a scholarship or selection test will be a long-term effort, for
student and for parents. As covered in earlier chapters, many scholarship and
selection tests do not assess students’ knowledge of the school curriculum
content. Short-term ‘cramming’ or rote learning of facts and figures will not
help students to perform better in a scholarship or selection test.
What many scholarship and selection tests do measure is students’ aptitude for
problem-solving, reasoning, creative thinking, comprehension, interpretation and
applying known concepts to new situations. These abilities cannot be developed by

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practice in the mechanical aspects of reading and routine mathematical processes,

but they can be developed over time. Children aren’t born with a fixed amount of
reading comprehension, problem-solving or ability to reason mathematically. They
require exposure to a culture of learning; to be immersed in a variety of age-
appropriate and engaging stimuli; and to be encouraged to think deeply about and
freely discuss their learning. Parents can be an integral part of this process.
While the suggestions in this chapter are relevant for students working on
their own, much of it is addressed to parents trying to help their children
develop thinking skills and abilities. Developing these abilities will assist a
student not only in a scholarship or selection test, but also in her general
schooling, and indeed throughout life.

How you can help your gifted child

Gifted and talented children may have special needs in one or more aspects of their
development and may experience a number of special stresses and difficulties. These
may include:

• extra pressure from parents and teachers to be continually successful

• increased fear of failure and a sense of failure when not ‘perfect’

• expectations that they will spend unusual amounts of time practising their special
skills such that they do not have normal play and recreation time

• developing high demands and expectations of others

• frustration caused by having skills at different stages of development (e.g. having

advanced cognitive skills but only ‘normal’ for age handwriting skills)

• difficulties in gaining access to a challenging level of education appropriate to their

needs

• inappropriate preschool or school curriculum and/or placement

• difficulties relating to other children of the same age and finding same age friends

• confusion in choosing a career for the child who is gifted in many areas.

The stresses sometimes experienced by gifted and talented children may lead to a
number of problems, including:

• deliberately not doing as well as they can, in an effort to hide their differences

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 Developing skills and abilities

• emotional difficulties, such as depression, stress, anxiety

• increased emotional intensity and sensitivity (including outbursts of temper or

tears)

• boredom in a normal classroom situation (which can lead to school refusal and/or
behavioural problems)

• limited social interaction and social development.

Generally speaking, parents of gifted and talented children should simply do what all
parents need to do — respond consistently to their children’s individual needs and
interests whilst staying flexible as their children’s needs change over time. It follows
that many of the ideas below are applicable to all children, gifted or not.

Try to:

• Provide your child with lots of opportunities to learn and try new things.

• Make sure that your child has some things to do that she finds challenging, as well
as some that she likes and can do easily.

• Encourage your child to participate in a broad range of educational and recreational

activities.

• Support your child with both their successes and their failures.

• Help your child to develop skills needed to relate to friends who may not be gifted
and talented.

• Talk with your child about her particular talents, what it means to be gifted and
ways to deal with any difficulties that may arise.

• Teach and encourage the social skills that will enable your child to fit comfortably
into her social world. Being gifted is not an excuse for bad behaviour.

Try not to:

• Push or place undue pressure on your child.

• ‘Show-off’ your child or talk a lot about her in public.

• Expect your child to be gifted and talented in all areas of her development.

• Be too ‘bossy’ in your parenting.

• Forget that your gifted child is still a child, and has all the normal needs of children,
including the need for love, support, stability, routine and fun.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

All children will do their best in an area of their interest, when they have skills and
they are encouraged to practise and enjoy themselves. Trying to make your child
succeed at something which does not interest the child and where the child cannot
reach the standard expected can be harmful to both child and parent.

(Information reproduced with permission from the Government of South Australia,

Women’s and Children’s Health Network, 2011, sections 8 and 10. Please see <www.cyh.
com> for more information.)

Practice tests and private tutoring

Some parents assume, or are convinced by other parents or peers, that students
will fail the test if they aren’t subjected to cramming or rigorous external
coaching. This is not true. Some practice tests and some tutoring may be
beneficial — but these methods should be treated with caution.
Practice tests and sample materials will enable your child to practise basic
skills, to become familiar with the style of questions and to practise working to a
time limit. Completing a practice test may help your child to identify the areas in
which she is already competent, and the areas that need further development.
When practising, ensure you are using the most up-to-date materials for the
particular test she will sit. Practice tests, sample questions and other preparation
materials are usually available for purchase from testing agencies. For
information, see the appendices at the end of this book.
Repeatedly sitting practice tests is unlikely to be the best preparation for a
scholarship or selection test. Sitting a practice test may assist your child to
become familiar with the testing experience, and may increase your child’s
confidence and decrease her nerves, but it probably won’t increase your child’s
academic aptitudes.
Encourage your child to practise more than answering questions — help
her to prepare planning strategies as well, such as planning the way she
organises work and structures answers in the written expression tasks.
Advise your child against memorising sample questions or answers. This is
a waste of time. Practice tests contain examples; these will not be the questions
your child will be asked in the test.

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 Developing skills and abilities

Many scholarship and selection tests will not require your child to know
factual information beyond what would normally be expected of a student in
that year level, but your child will need to be able to analyse information .

provided in the test and to apply this knowledge to new situations and problems.
Test developers and markers warn against excessive private tutoring and
against pre-preparation of written expression pieces. Test markers have
commented that they can often tell when students have pre-prepared answers
before the test, as writing is often off-task, doesn’t correctly follow the instructions
or doesn’t adequately address the stimulus material. These responses will not
score well.

Private tutoring checklist

Private tutoring or coaching is by no means essential for your child to perform at her
best. In fact, some test developers, test markers and schools discourage private tutoring.
However, if you wish to consider private tutoring, some useful questions to ask may be:

• Will this tutoring give your child transferable skills that can be used apart from the
scholarship or selection test, such as problem-solving skills or interview skills?

• How familiar is the tutor or agency with the particular test your child plans to sit?

• What methods does the tutor or agency use? Repeated sitting of practice tests or
revision of work your child completes in school may not be the most useful m
­ ethods
of preparation.

• What claims does the tutor or agency make? Are these realistic? Can they be
substantiated?

Be wary of anyone advertising ‘too good to be true’ claims or promising success — no

child sitting a scholarship or selection test is guaranteed a place.

Thinking
This book has been emphasising that many scholarship and selection tests will
not expect your child to have memorised slabs of text, tables of figures or
batches of mathematical formulae. It has used terms such as ‘thinking’,
‘comprehending’, ‘problem-solving’ and ‘reasoning’ — but rather than take for

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granted that everyone understands the same thing by each of these terms, this
section aims to describe thinking in more detail by explaining some modern
theories of thinking, cognition and learning. This is by no means an exhaustive
list of educational or cognitive theory, and if you are interested in learning more
about these and other theories, see the ‘References’ section at the end of this
book for further reading.
The following sections describe some different theories that aim to better
explain what thinking is and how it can best be developed. Not every aspect of
every theory will resonate with every student or be applicable to every
student’s style of learning, but by understanding the concepts and using some
of the ideas covered in this chapter, you may become more aware of your
particular patterns of learning, which may help to broaden your thinking
skills base.

Higher-order thinking
The type of thinking that many scholarship and selection tests aim to assess is
sometimes called higher-order thinking or critical thinking. Higher-order
thinking goes beyond rote learning: it assumes that memorising something is
not the same as thinking about it. Students can be taught to memorise things
— facts, formulae, quotes from a book — without understanding them.
Rote learning requires a student to memorise and parrot back facts and
figures. It’s the skill of a robot programmed to perform a routine function, but
unable to use the information to think for itself. Higher-order thinking requires
more cognitive processing, and is more difficult to learn and to teach than rote
learning, but it also has a much wider application. Higher-order thinking
enables us to understand pieces of information; connect them to each other;
relate new information to existing knowledge; to organise and categorise
information; and to fit pieces of information together in novel ways to create
new solutions to problems.
Understanding the processes involved in higher-order thinking can be a
good start to a student’s development of these skills. Higher-order thinking
skills are necessary in order to perform the sorts of tasks that will be expected
of a student in a scholarship or selection test.

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 Developing skills and abilities

Essentially, higher-order thinking can be seen as a two-step process: the

first step is that we are exposed to content, basic data, and we absorb it and
store it; the second step is that we turn this data into information, ideas,
concepts, principles and theories, which we apply as relevant in new situations
to solve new problems.

Thinking curriculum
The concept of a ‘thinking curriculum’, a term first coined by Lauren Resnick in
1989, acknowledges that while there is a body of knowledge that students should
have an understanding of if they are to be considered educated, and that students
must have a solid grasp of foundation knowledge on which to base new
information for any form of learning to occur, it is also vital that students develop
the ability to think for themselves if they are to succeed beyond the school context.
The thinking curriculum models learning around ideas generated by
students; links substantive, real-world problems to curriculum content; ensures
that children achieve deep knowledge and understanding; and fosters higher-
order thinking through the use of technology, creativity, the visual arts and
mathematical and scientific ideas (Resnick, 1989).

A tip from Thomas Edison

Highly creative people sometimes give ‘wrong’ answers to strictly defined questions
because they view the problem from a different perspective. Creative intelligence is the
driving force behind invention and innovation. Thomas Edison experimented with
more than 2000 different models before getting the light bulb right. When a journalist
asked him how it felt to fail so many times, Edison replied, ‘I never failed once. I
invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.’

Multiple Intelligences
The theory of Multiple Intelligences is another model designed to account for
the different ways that people learn. This theory, developed in 1983 by Dr
Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, starts from the
position that the conventional concept of intelligence is too narrow and that IQ
tests and traditional education highlight only a limited set of skills, when the

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range of human potential is much broader. The theory proposes that education
which encompasses a wide variety of methods and learning activities will
appeal to and benefit a wider range of students, not just those with strong verbal
and logical skills. Further, it claims that students who are weak in some areas,
such as verbal and logical skills, will better develop these skills if necessary
information is presented in a new way. According to the theory of Multiple
Intelligences, we each demonstrate a combination of strengths and weaknesses
across the areas. Intelligences are not isolated from each other; one activity may
engage several areas, and areas can interact to complement or interrupt each
other (Gardner, 1983).
All children have all intelligences, and their intelligence profile is not fixed;
rich learning experiences can develop various intelligences. The theory of Multiple
Intelligences emphasises that learners weak in some areas are not lacking in
intelligence, but may simply be stronger in other areas. It also aims to help tailor
learning experiences for students that make use of all the areas of intelligence.
This doesn’t mean you need to find eight ways to convey each piece of
information to your child. It does mean that you should create rich learning
activities that engage her particular strengths, help her to develop in any areas in
which she may not be as strong and allow her to learn across several areas at once.

Gardner’s Eight Multiple Intelligences

Verbal–linguistic intelligence has to do with the written and spoken word. If your child
likes to read, write and tell stories, has an interest in foreign languages and is good at
memorising words, facts, names, dates and trivia, she has strong verbal–linguistic
intelligence. Learning activities structured around reading, taking notes, listening to
lectures and storytelling should suit your child’s learning style. She may enjoy
cementing her own learning by teaching others, so encourage her to explain what she
has learned to you.

Logical–mathematical intelligence involves the propensity towards reasoning, abstract

pattern recognition, classification, experimentation, investigation and calculation. If
your child enjoys number problems, chess or computer programming, she probably has
strong logical–mathematical intelligence. Learning activities structured around
complex calculations, formulas, drills, problem-solving and theorising should suit your
child’s learning style.

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 Developing skills and abilities

Visual–spatial intelligence often manifests as strong visual or ‘photographic’ memory, a

good sense of direction or artistic talent. If your child enjoys drawing or building, plays
with machines, likes mazes or is good at reading maps, she is displaying strong visual–
spatial intelligence. Learning activities structured around puzzles, three-dimensional
objects, multimedia presentations and creating artwork should suit her learning style.

Bodily kinaesthetic intelligence focuses on physical action and movement. People with
strong bodily kinaesthetic intelligence often talk with their hands, like to make things
with their hands, have good dexterity and balance and enjoy sports or performing arts.
If your child has strong bodily kinaesthetic intelligence, she may learn well through
doing. Try hands-on learning activities such as dancing or acting out concepts, making
models, seeing a play or visiting an interactive science museum.

People strong in interpersonal intelligence are good at interacting with others. They are
often extroverted, good at communication, empathy and teamwork. If your child is
strong in interpersonal intelligence, she may learn best through sharing, cooperating,
discussion and debate. Help her to find mentors, and encourage her to invite friends
over for study sessions and to join clubs and groups.

In contrast, people strong in intrapersonal intelligence are typically introspective and self-
reflective. If your child displays a high level of self-awareness, is a perfectionist and
enjoys philosophy or abstract thought, she may prefer learning activities that allow her to
set her own goals; to complete individual, self-paced projects that emphasise personal
growth; and to reflect on her learning through meditative tasks such as journal writing.

People strong in musical–rhythmic intelligence often take easily to singing, playing

musical instruments and composing music. If your child is forever drumming on the
kitchen table or humming a tune out loud, she is likely to be strong in this intelligence.
People with musical–rhythmic intelligence remember information that they hear.
Information presented through lectures or songs may be absorbed well. Encourage
your child to attend lectures, read information aloud to her and make up songs,
rhythms or rhymes to help her remember information.

Naturalistic intelligence refers to an affinity to nature and skill in nurturing. If your child
likes to be outside, loves animals, is good at gardening or has an interest in geography or
the weather, she is displaying naturalistic intelligence. She will be likely to enjoy learning
activities like keeping an aquarium or terrarium, nature walks, and visiting the zoo or
the botanical gardens. Abstract concepts may not appeal to her, and she is more likely to
understand and retain information if she can see how it relates to the real world.

(adapted from Gardner, 1983)

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Sustained shared thinking

Sustained shared thinking is a concept defined by a group of researchers
investigating early childhood education in the United Kingdom (Sylva et al.,
2007). Their study aimed to investigate the quality of the home learning
environment. The study found, not surprisingly, that parents’ involvement in
their children’s education has a significant effect on those children’s achievement
and engagement.
The study found that the practice of sustained shared thinking has the
strongest positive effect on children’s engagement and achievement. According
to the study:
• Sustained shared thinking occurs when two or more individuals work
together in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate
an activity, extend a narrative and so forth. Both parties must contribute to
the thinking and it must develop and extend the understanding.
• Sustained shared thinking can be achieved by working with your child
one-on-one and involving her in active conversations, encouraging her to
initiate her own topics, freely offer information and ideas and speculate
about possibilities.
This process hinges on the quality of adult–child interaction. Try to let your
child initiate her own learning activities. You can extend the intellectual
challenge of an activity once she has initiated it.
You may find it challenging at first to find a balance where you become
immersed in your child’s learning activity without leading or dominating it.
Some of the following strategies may help.
• Respect your child’s choices. If you ask your child what she wants to do, and
then ignore her suggestion, she’s unlikely to engage in whatever happens
next.
• Listen carefully. Tune in to what your child is saying and doing.
• Limit questioning. Sometimes parents bombard their child with questions in
an effort to be involved — but this may have the opposite effect if it makes
your child feel that she’s being interrogated or quizzed.
• Make your questions count. When you do have to ask, use open-ended
questions that leave room for your child to describe and speculate. A simple
example is just to ask ‘What do you think about this?’ rather than ‘Do you

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 Developing skills and abilities

like this?’ Open-ended questions allow your child to explore her thinking
aloud and are more likely to result in higher-order thinking than are closed
yes or no questions.
• Try positive questioning. When your child asks you something, extend her
thinking by reflecting the question back. Try questions such as, ‘That’s an
interesting question. What do you think?’ or ‘How do you think we could
find out the answer to that question?’
• Encourage elaboration. Use statements like: ‘I really want to know more about
this.’
• Use body language. Physically demonstrate that your child has your attention
by sustaining eye contact, smiling and nodding. It may seem obvious, but it
is a good way to show you are interested without dominating conversation.
Also try to be aware of your child’s body language, as well as her speech.
• Clarify. Summarise your child’s thoughts, and reflect her use of language.
Repeat words and phrases and restate her ideas.
• Give your child time. Leave short pauses after breaks in her speech. She may
not have finished her thought, and a pause gives her thinking time and
space to continue speaking or to ask a question. Remember to use your body
language though, so she knows you’re still listening.
• Make information relevant. When you share information, try not to lecture.
Personalise factual information with examples from your own experience.
• Make suggestions. Tone and phrasing both make the difference between a
suggestion and an order. Suggesting ‘You might want to try doing it this
way’ is more respectful than commanding ‘Do it this way.’ And, no matter
how involved — or frustrated — you may get, avoid saying, ‘Don’t do it that
way’, ‘Do it my way’, or worst of all, ‘Here, just let me do it.’
• Lead by example. Rather than presenting your decisions and conclusions as
faits accomplis, model your own thinking so your child can see how you got
there. Essentially, think out loud.
• Praise wisely. Be specific in your compliments, otherwise they risk being
insipid. Use your praise to further extend your child’s thinking. For example,
rather than just saying, ‘That’s a pretty drawing’, explore artistic technique by
commenting, ‘The use of colour is really interesting’, or ‘The sense of depth
must have been challenging to achieve’ and leave your child room to respond.

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• Share goals. Discuss your child’s educational goals with her, and with her
school and teachers. The UK study found that when children, parents and
staff shared information about the child’s education, children were engaged
and parents were able to support their children at home with learning
activities that complemented their school experiences.
Sustained shared thinking is difficult to do, and requires much practice and
self-awareness on the part of the parent. The benefit for your child is worth the
effort, though: according to the UK study, sustained shared thinking
significantly extends children’s emotional and cognitive development.

Six Thinking Hats

The strategy of the Six Thinking Hats, originally developed by Edward de Bono
(1985) as a tool for business decision-making and teamwork, has been adapted
for use in education. The strategy defines six states, types or angles of thinking,
each symbolised by a different colour. Students work through a topic or
problem, putting on each hat — either actually or figuratively — as they address
the topic from each different angle.
Using this strategy may assist a student to brainstorm ideas and information,
to problem-solve and to reflect on her thinking process. Like the Multiple
Intelligences theory, the Six Thinking Hats strategy aims to get a student using
a range of thinking skills.
• The white hat symbolises neutrality and statements of fact. When a student
does ‘white hat thinking’ she should identify the facts, figures and details,
consider what information is available and identify what information is
needed.
• The red hat represents emotion and intuition. ‘Red hat thinking’ allows a
student to articulate her gut reactions and feelings about a topic or problem,
without having to justify these. This type of thinking is useful for making a
shortlist from a range of options and for identifying hunches that may be
supported with logic during later thinking phases.
• The black hat denotes constructive criticism. This angle of thinking explores
the problems with a topic or proposal; identifies flaws, risks and obstacles;
and exercises judgement and caution. Unlike the red hat phase, this phase
should involve logical thinking. In this phase, a student can identify

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problems without the obligation to provide solutions. This type of thinking

comes naturally to many people. A key benefit of the Six Thinking Hats
strategy is that this type of thinking has its place, but once the ‘black hat
thinking’ phase is exhausted, criticisms should not be made during any
other phase of the process. Similarly, try not to solve problems during the
black hat phase — that comes later.
• The yellow hat stands for positivity. ‘Yellow hat thinking’ focuses on the
positive aspects of a topic, problem or proposal. It is not hope or blind
optimism — statements must still be logical and based on fact. Yellow hat
thinking allows a student to list the reasons in favour of an idea.
• The green hat embodies creativity. ‘Green hat thinking’ is the phase of lateral
thinking, brainstorming new ideas, identifying new possibilities, inventing,
making suggestions, creating alternatives and problem-solving the
challenges identified by black hat thinking. This phase should generate a
range of ideas without passing judgement.
• The blue hat symbolises metacognition. ‘Blue hat thinking’ is about reflection,
the big picture and thinking about our thinking. In the blue hat phase, a
student can revisit the purpose of the project or activity, organise the
process, make decisions, summarise, review and draw conclusions. You
might ask your child questions like, ‘What is the focus of this project?’,
‘What have we achieved so far?’, ‘What thinking still needs to be done?’,
‘What hat might we need for that?’ and ‘What have we learned?’
Six Hat thinking can be applied to most topics, problems or activities. You
don’t always have to use all the hats, and you don’t have to use them in any
particular order.
As a simple example to illustrate the process, let’s say your young child is
reading the book Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild, which is quite a
sophisticated text in its use of language, illustration and content. Your child’s
red hat responses to the book might be, ‘I like the character of Ben’, ‘The pictures
are cool’, ‘The spelling is confusing’, or ‘This book made me feel lonely.’ White
hat thinking might allow her to expand on the elements of missing information,
such as, ‘There are wolves in the title but not in the text’, or ‘Something bad has
happened to the world in the book, but it’s not clearly stated, so I’m not sure
what.’ Black and yellow hat thinking would allow her to use logic to explain

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why she liked and didn’t like aspects of the book. All of the earlier ideas might
be explored using green hat thinking: ‘I think the spelling is supposed to make
me want to read out loud’; ‘Maybe the people are the wolves’; ‘Maybe the world
in the book went through a war, or a natural disaster.’ Blue hat thinking might
be a reflection on what the book taught your child, or a comparison of this book
to other books she has read.
The key to using Six Hats thinking effectively is to break down different
styles of thinking, to separate the processes and cycle through each hat
purposefully. The strategy should teach your child to concentrate clearly on
each approach to ensure a thorough and rounded exploration of the topic or
problem.

Reading
Reading may be one of the best ways a student can develop the skills that
scholarship and selection tests target. Your home environment has a significant
impact on your family’s literacy and language development, which in turn has
an impact on academic performance.
Reading widely will help a student expand her vocabulary, learn information
about the world, engage in imagination and deal with complex ideas. It may
also familiarise her with the ways in which different writers express thoughts,
ideas, characters and plots, and so improve her writing skills.
Parents’ involvement in their children’s reading practices at home positively
affects children’s educational achievement. This effect is strongest if parents
take an interest in their children’s ability to read and enjoyment of reading from
early childhood — but it is never too late to get involved.
Most students who sit for scholarship or selection tests are high-achieving
students. It is likely, then, that your child is already an avid reader. There are
still ways in which you can help your child further improve her skills in reading
comprehension. A high-achieving student needs not just to read, but to think
about and discuss what she is reading.
Reading is about much more than stringing a series of words together; it is
about making sense of text in all its complexity, according to Michael Pressley
(2001), education professor and expert in reading literacy. As he explains in his

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paper Comprehension Instruction: What makes sense now, what might make sense
soon, comprehension requires a reader to master a range of subtle skills.

Good readers are aware of why they are reading a text; gain an overview of the
text before reading; make predictions about the upcoming text; read selectively
based on their overview; associate ideas in text to what they already know;
note whether their predictions and expectations about text content are being
met; revise their prior knowledge when compelling new ideas conflicting with
prior knowledge are encountered; figure out the meanings of unfamiliar
vocabulary based on context clues; underline, reread, make notes and
paraphrase to remember important points; interpret the text; evaluate its
quality; review important points as they conclude reading, and think about
how ideas encountered in the text might be used in the future. Young and less
skilled readers, in contrast, exhibit a lack of such activity. (Pressley, 2001)

There are many strategies you can employ to encourage your child to
develop reading skills. The key is to concentrate on reading activities that your
child enjoys, so that reading is seen as fun, not as hard work. Some suggestions
are given below:
• Teach by example. Reading books, magazines or newspapers in front of
your child can set a powerful example. When your child sees you reading
on a regular basis for pleasure, she should understand that you value
reading, and may model her behaviour accordingly.
• Create an environment in which reading is a natural, spontaneous and
important activity. Share information and opinions about what you are
reading, and generate opportunities to share reading with your child. Read
items aloud from the newspaper at the breakfast table and discuss these in
a casual way; cook with your child, encouraging her to read recipes and the
labels on ingredients; talk about family history and produce a genealogy
chart together; play audio books in the car. Make reading aloud a normal
part of family life. Your child is learning from you all the time, not just
when you sit down for a formal lesson.
• Read to and with your child. Take turns reading aloud. If you have more
than one child, start a tradition of siblings reading to each other. Hearing
you read and reading aloud may improve your child’s fluency and

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expression. Make reading together a non-judgemental, casual, non-stressful

activity; your child may learn to associate reading with warm feelings of
family bonding and support.
• Discuss the material you read together with your child. Talk about
characters, settings, plot, themes, social issues and language. If you come
across a word your child doesn’t know, encourage her to determine what it
might mean in the context of the surrounding text. Look the word up in a
dictionary. Introduce your child to your favourite novels and explore why
these books are special to you.
• Keep a variety of reading material around the house, and notice what your
child reads. Expose your child to a range of text types and genres, and
challenge her to engage with materials in new ways. Read a headline from a
newspaper or magazine, or the heading from a book chapter and ask your
child to anticipate what the following text will be about, then read on to see
how accurate her predictions were. Analyse a political cartoon from a
newspaper together, debating each other’s interpretations of the image, and
backing this up by articulating the inferences that you each have made to
find meaning in the graphic. Encourage your child to acknowledge if she
doesn’t understand something she has read. Discuss how texts can be
complicated if the reader doesn’t have adequate context, and ask your child
how she might go about building an understanding.
• Try to strike a balance between helping your child choose engaging, age-
appropriate reading materials, and giving her freedom to choose for herself.
If you have a mature teenaged child, acknowledge this maturity by
suggesting appropriate adult-level reading material. Don’t dictate what she
should read, but try to encourage her to read across a range of text types
and genres. Read the same books as your child reads.
• Designate a bookshelf in the house for your child, and ensure she has a
quiet, peaceful place to read.
• Take your child to bookshops, and browse together or separately. Giving an
older child a bookshop allowance, gift certificate or subscription to a
magazine will allow her to choose according to personal taste and interest,
and may encourage the attitude that reading is a gift.

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• Visit libraries regularly and ensure your child has a valid borrowing card.
Check if the library has a book club and consider joining up. If the local
library doesn’t excite your child, try a visit to a university library.
• Find out from your child or from your child’s school which texts are being
covered in class. Discuss your child’s reading strengths and areas for
improvement with the class teacher. Get advice from teachers on the best
way to support your child’s literacy development. Volunteer for classroom
literacy programs.
• Play games. Invest in board games and puzzles that challenge your child to
think outside the box, improve pattern recognition and vocabulary, use
visual learning cues and make learning fun. Try word games, picture
drawing or pattern recognition games, chess, crosswords and number
puzzles.
• Be aware of what your child is watching on television and viewing on the
Internet. Many people, especially from younger generations, get much of
their information and entertainment from non-print media, and it would be
naive and counterproductive to underestimate the ways in which television
and the Internet can have a positive impact on your child’s learning.
• Encourage your child to view television shows and internet materials that
teach the viewer something, introduce new ideas or perspectives and
encourage her to listen and question. If your child likes a book that has been
adapted into a movie, allow her to watch the movie; similarly, encourage
your child to find books that explore the themes of the television shows that
she engages with.
• As with reading, try to participate in your child’s television watching or
Internet surfing. Discuss and ask questions about what you view together.
Explore what the material has taught your child.

Reading comprehension skills

The written words themselves furnish only some of the information that a reader
requires to comprehend a text. The reader needs to supply the rest. Much of the meaning
of a text comes from how an author expresses ideas, or from what is not said. Authors
imply; therefore, readers must learn to infer.

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Accomplished readers make use of a range of skills to develop understanding. These

may include the ability to:

• understand paragraph structure and grammatical conventions

• guess the meaning of unknown words from the context of surrounding text

• read inferentially, ‘between the lines’, making logical deductions and conclusions,
and noticing hints and omissions made by the writer

• identify characters’ beliefs, personalities, motivations and relationships to one another

• anticipate what may happen next in the text

• provide explanations for events or ideas that are presented in the text

• recognise the author’s perspective, with an awareness of the author’s or narrator’s

assumptions, beliefs, intentions and biases

• distinguish the importance of the writer’s voice, including the use of language,
tone, syntax, coherence and awareness of audience

• interpret multiple levels of meaning

• connect the ideas in the text to real-life experiences and knowledge.

Writing
Students should be encouraged to write as well as read widely — learning to
write well and learning to read well go hand in hand. Just as reading books,
magazines or newspapers in the family home can set a powerful example for
reading, students can be taught to value writing in a variety of ways by the
example of those around them.
• Provide your child with a place to write, such as a designated desk or table
in a quiet spot in the house. In addition to a computer, provide plenty of
other materials, such as paper, pens and pencils.
• Suggest that your child keeps a journal to write about ideas and feelings,
aspirations, events that happen at home and school, interesting people and
inventions of the imagination. Keep one yourself! If you and your child feel
comfortable sharing some of this journalling, read the entries aloud and
discuss them. How do accounts of shared experiences differ?

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 Developing skills and abilities

• Encourage your child to write letters or emails to relatives and friends, or to

find a penpal. Write a family newsletter together that you can send to
overseas or interstate relatives.
• Talk over ideas for writing projects or topics that interest your child. Steer
her away from tasks that promote ‘knowledge telling’ or ‘knowledge
dumping’. That is, if your child wants to write something about World War
II, rather than choosing a topic like ‘The major events of World War II’,
explore an issue that allows her to ‘apply’ her knowledge rather than just
show it. A topic like ‘Should the United States of America have used nuclear
strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki?’ requires the writer to have a solid
understanding of the events of World War II, but also challenges her to
engage with various historical perspectives and ethical considerations.
Chapter 2 looked at a number of examples of writing responses and analysed
some strengths and weaknesses against the framework of what examiners are
looking for. Practising the kind of writing required in the scholarship test will
give your child a better feel for the format, length and time restraints, and
therefore hopefully give her more confidence in the test. However, developing
writing skills is a long-term process that continues into adulthood. All of us can
extend, improve and develop our writing skills through writing more.
There are two main traditions of teaching writing: a skills approach with
direct instruction of essential skills and grammar; and a process approach
which is more student-centred and seeks to engage the interests of the student
(Westwood, 2008). Teachers use both of these approaches to help children
develop basic skills and knowledge and to extend and develop their ability to
communicate well in a variety of contexts.
With a skills approach, the teacher focuses on direct instruction about
grammar, sentence construction, spelling and punctuation, essay writing
formats and so on. The aim is to develop the ‘building block’ skills of writing.
Process approaches, on the other hand, aim to extend and develop the
student’s writing skills. Process approaches are often characterised by shared
experiences of writing, in which the teacher engages the student in interesting
and real-life writing experiences that make the process of writing explicit.
Starting with thinking about the topic and purpose of writing, the teacher
guides the student through a process of drafting and revising which allows the

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student to see that writing is an evolving process. Often teachers use

collaborative writing approaches that maximise opportunities to transfer and
share ideas between teachers and students and between students and other
students.

Some process writing approaches

Paired writing
Two students (or a parent and child) work together to plan and write a story or report.
Research has shown this to have a positive effect on developing writing skills.

Writers’ workshop
A group of writers choose a topic and then plan and write drafts over a number of
sessions. Group sharing, paired writing and peer editing are important parts of the
writers’ workshop.

Guided writing
Guided writing involves the teacher demonstrating the processes involved in a
particular writing skill, for example, generating a topic, creating and organising an
opening paragraph and developing the remaining ideas in logical sequence. Students
then have an opportunity to try the skills themselves, perhaps presenting back to the
group on how they went about it.
(adapted from Westwood, 2008)

One approach teachers use to make the writing process more explicit is to practise and
use strategic writing approaches. These are strategies that help the writer plan and
execute a writing task. Sometimes these strategies are expressed as acronyms or
acrostics which the student learns to help them remember the steps of the strategy, for
example, ‘POW and TREE’, or ‘POW and WWW and What 2 and How 2’.

POW and TREE (for opinion essays)

P = Pick your topic or idea.
O = Organise your thoughts and make notes.
W = Write, and then say more.
T = Topic sentence — state your opinion.
R = Give at least three reasons to support that belief.

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E = Explain your reasons in more detail.

E = End with a good concluding statement.
(adapted from Harris et al., 2002)

POW and WWW and What 2 and How 2 (for storytelling)

P = Pick your topic or idea.
O = Organise your thoughts and make notes.
W = Write, and then say more.
WWW = Who are the characters? When does the story take place? Where does the story
take place?
What 2 = What do the characters do? What happens?
How 2 = How does the story end? How did the characters feel?
(adapted from Saddler, 2006)

There are many books available on developing writing skills that focus on
strategic approaches. The best strategic approaches are those that give the writer
confidence and structure in approaching the task but are not prescriptive in
exactly how the writing should be undertaken. Be sceptical of schematic
approaches that try to teach the ‘perfect’ structure for an opinion essay or short
story. These overly structured approaches may end up restricting and limiting
the writer’s thinking rather than supporting her to explore interesting, well-
formed and well-supported ideas.
Simply stated, the key to becoming a confident and competent writer is to
write. Doing lots of writing, as well as different kinds of writing, will help a
student explore her written voice, apply her growing understanding of how
best to communicate ideas in fluent and compelling ways and give her
confidence to approach any writing task.

A note on spelling and punctuation

When reading your child’s written compositions, provide as much constructive
praise as possible. Focus first on the ideas the writer has conveyed, and the
structure of how the ideas are organised. Fluency, spelling, punctuation and
correct grammar are important insofar as they help a writer express ideas
better. These are likely to improve the more often, and more widely, a student

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reads; although if a student consistently misunderstands rules of grammar,

explicit revision may help. In general, it is more important for students to
articulate interesting ideas, and to structure these into a fluent and compelling
composition, than it is to worry about minor errors in spelling.

Mathematics
The previous section discussed theories of thinking in order to clarify what it
means to think critically. This section will discuss what it means to work
mathematically. With regard to reading, for example, you have learnt the
difference between rote learning, such as memorising a slab of text, and
comprehension, such as understanding characters’ motivations by reading
between the lines. In the same way, you may recognise that reciting times tables
is not what maths is about in its entirety. What, then, does higher-order thinking
look like in mathematics?
The standard concept of higher-order thinking in maths currently used in
school curricula is known as ‘working mathematically’, or sometimes thinking
or reasoning mathematically. Working mathematically requires the practical
and theoretical application of mathematical knowledge. Key to working
mathematically is the skill of inquiry — real maths requires students to
identify and pose problems, and to solve these by selecting and applying
appropriate strategies. It entails skills in conjecture and proof, generalisation
and estimation, and the use of mathematical models. Students also need to
know how to express ideas and solutions using mathematical conventions.
According to the National Mathematics Forum (2008) in the Initial Advice
paper to the National Curriculum Board (now known as the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority – ACARA), working
mathematically is about ‘interpreting the world mathematically, appreciating
the elegance and power of mathematical thinking, experiencing mathematics
as an enjoyable experience, and using mathematics to inform predictions and
decisions about personal and financial priorities’ (p. 5).
The National Mathematics Forum (2008) lists what it considers to be the key
capacities that allow mathematically literate people to interpret everyday
information: number sense; measurement, such as length, mass and capacity;

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estimating quantities; aspects of location including map reading; properties of

shapes; personal finance and budgeting; graphical interpretation; understanding
ratio, rates and percentages; using and manipulating formulas; identifying
patterns and relationships; modelling; graphical interpretation; and
representing and interpreting sophisticated data.
The current Australian Curriculum: Mathematics has incorporated all of
these ideas into its rationale and ‘aims to ensure that students are confident,
creative users and communicators of mathematics, able to investigate, represent
and interpret situations in their personal and work lives and as active citizens’
(ACARA, 2012). You can support this at home by becoming aware yourself of all
the many ways that you use maths in everyday life, and using your life
experiences as learning opportunities for your child.

Working mathematically in the real world

Cooking, shopping, travelling and sport are all great everyday opportunities for a
student to engage in exploring mathematical thinking. Students can practise by:

• converting a recipe that serves four to serve 12 or 15

• working out the best value product among a number of different brands and sizes
at the supermarket

• doing some research on the best mobile phone plan for different family members

• finding the next place on the map where they’ll need to fill up petrol on a road trip

• calculating the run rate required in a cricket match, or how many points per quarter
a team will need to score to win a game of basketball from a losing position.

The point about making maths relevant to real life is an important one.
Some students, and some parents, say they find maths hard, boring and
inaccessible. This is probably because they struggle to get past the traditional
concept of maths as monotonous times tables, rows of sums and formulae.
These mathematical tools have their place, and a student must acquire basic
numeracy and mathematical knowledge that she can then apply to work
mathematically. However, there will almost always be a way to make these
tasks more interesting by contextualising them with relevant, real-life examples.

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If your child mutters the dreaded question, ‘When am I ever going to use this in
real life?’, you should have an answer ready!
Perhaps the most pragmatic reason to take maths seriously is that it is
required in many other subjects, such as business studies, psychology,
geography, chemistry, physics, and information and communication technology.
It is essential for anyone planning to go into professional occupations such as
economics, architecture or engineering, or into trades such as building, sports,
health and hospitality.
When solving mathematical problems, a student’s thinking may progress
through three stages: identifying and describing; understanding and applying;
and communicating and justifying (Queensland Studies Authority, 2005).
In the first phase, identifying and describing, a student might explain her
understanding of the problem in her own words. Try prompting your child to
identify the problem, what information she has, what information she needs to
find out, whether she has done a problem like this before, what mathematical
tools and concepts she already has that she could apply to this problem and
what steps she might take to progress.
In the second phase, understanding and applying, the student can apply the
strategies she has identified, such as applying concepts and tools to tackle the
problem; looking for patterns; representing the problem using graphs, objects,
pictures, symbols or models; generating a solution; and testing and verifying
her solution by real-world trialling, using a different method to achieve the
same outcome, or working backwards from the answer to prove her work.
Encourage your child to discuss the reasoning, methods and outcomes of her
work, including both correct and incorrect outcomes. Students should try to
develop a habit of checking their solutions against a real-life scenario. If a
student’s solution to a distance and speed problem in the real-life context of
long-distance running has an athlete breaking the sound barrier on foot, for
example, it suggests she may need to rework the problem. Parents should allow
their child, as often as possible, to reach these conclusions on her own, and to
generate her own self-correcting alternative solutions.
The third phase, communicating and justifying, occurs after a student has
generated what she believes to be the solution to the problem. Again, she should
be able to explain her own work, the steps she took, the tools she applied, the

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proof of the solution and what she has learnt from the problem. Challenge any
missing information, jumps or inconsistencies in logic. The idea is for her to
generalise her learning and make connections between existing and new
knowledge, so that she retains skills to be applied to future problem-solving
opportunities.

School education for gifted and talented students

The recent Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented
Students found that the key to educating gifted students is to personalise learning for
each student. Key strategies in schools should include:

• an individual learning plan for each student — maintaining a document that

summarises a student’s strengths and areas for improvement; sets learning goals to
extend these strengths and address these relative weaknesses; and outlines
strategies through which these goals will be achieved

• curriculum differentiation — tailoring the curriculum, teaching methods and

learning activities to meet each student’s learning needs and goals

• acceleration — supporting high-achieving students to move through the curriculum

more quickly than other students

• ability grouping — assigning students to classes or study groups based on

achievement rather than age

• extension and enrichment — extracurricular academic activities, such as the

Tournament of Minds, science projects, chess club, music lessons, excursions, and
so on.

(Parliament of Victoria, Education and Training Committee, 2012, pp. 109–120)

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Case study: Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Sydney, New South Wales

Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC Sydney) in Croydon, Sydney, is an

independent day and boarding school for girls from Reception to Year
12 (R–12), offering a broad curriculum, including a strong music
program, to approximately 1300 students from a diverse range of
backgrounds.
New students, as well as current PLC Sydney students, sit the ACER
scholarship test in Year 6 for entry into Year 7. Mr Rod Broadhead, Head
Teacher, Curriculum R–12, explains that while candidates can indicate
alternative preferences when they register to sit the test, the College
looks most favourably on candidates who indicate PLC Sydney as their
first preference.
‘We’re looking to identify candidates for whom PLC Sydney is the
first preference. We value candidates and their families who want to
become a part of the College community,’ Mr Broadhead says. ‘We
expect candidates to sit the ACER Cooperative Scholarship Testing
Program (CSTP) test at our school if PLC Sydney is their first preference.’
ACER produces the CSTP tests, supplies the test to schools, marks
the test papers and reports the results to schools, but not directly to
candidates.
‘We use results from the ACER CSTP suite of written expression,
comprehension and interpretation, and mathematics tests to identify the
general capabilities of candidates. Students who gain an academic
scholarship place at PLC Sydney will typically have performed well
across the CSTP tests. While we don’t weight results from particular
tests, we may use results from the language components as a way to
discriminate in cases where two candidates are in all other respects
equal.’
‘We arrive at a shortlist on the basis of the ACER CSTP results,
alongside each candidate’s portfolio, which includes school reports, but
we give significant weight to the ACER CSTP results since these provide
us with a common measure for all candidates.’

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The College also uses the portfolios, which demonstrate each

candidate’s involvement in extracurricular activities and community
service, and achievement in sports, music or arts programs, to identify
candidates’ potential to lead by positive example.
‘The most useful portfolios provide information in an economical
way, outlining highlights that demonstrate the achievements of the
candidate, and provide evidence of her well-roundedness and
contributions to her current school.’
All shortlisted candidates are invited to an interview, at which they
are typically offered a full or partial scholarship. ‘The purpose,’ explains
Mr Broadhead, ‘is to learn a little more about the candidate and her
family, to confirm her fit with the College and in some cases ascertain
instances where there is a particular financial need.’
Candidates for scholarships to PLC can register online, with
registrations typically opening late in third term and closing the
following February. Candidates sit the ACER CSTP test in February for
consideration for a scholarship the following year.
‘PLC attracts candidates of a very high calibre from a very wide
range of locations,’ Mr Broadhead says. ‘Parents need to understand that
it is a very competitive field.’
The impact of scholarship students at PLC Sydney is significant,
Mr Broadhead explains. ‘PLC Sydney is well known as a school that
pursues excellence in every sphere, and our academic scholarships
program clearly supports that pursuit. We’re not simply looking for
academic excellence, though; we’re also looking for high-achieving girls
who will participate in and enrich the school.’
‘We have a very cohesive cohort of girls and our scholarship
students play an important role in enhancing our learning environment.
We all know that high-quality teachers play a crucial role in maintaining
a culture of excellence in our College, but the positive peer effect of
students on one another is also immensely important to us.’

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Chapter 4 Preparing for the day

Many students preparing to sit a scholarship or selection test find the week
leading up to the test can be a very stressful time. As this book has emphasised,
the most important thing for a parent to do is to make sure that their child feels
supported.

The week before the test

If you have followed the advice contained within this book, preparing your
child to sit for a scholarship or selection test has been a long-term process of
engaging in her education and developing her higher-order thinking and
problem-solving skills. A balanced approach is as important as ever in the days
before the test. Now is not the time to resort to cramming or rote learning. This
is very unlikely to help a student perform better in a scholarship or selection
test.
Your long-term efforts up to this point have contributed to your child’s
preparation for the test. She is either ready or she is not, and undue pressure
will not help her in either case. Help her to relax and feel valued. She may be
feeling quite anxious about the test and the implications of her results, so try to
remove any additional stressors from her life at this time. Support her
emotionally. Remember, most students who sit a scholarship or selection test do
not receive a place, so prepare her, and yourself, for this possibility. Reassure
her that it is OK if she doesn’t get a place. This is not a test of her worth as a
person, nor does her entire future depend on the results.

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Dealing with panic

Many students find the test stressful. Good long-term preparation is the best way to
prevent anxiety, but even well-prepared students can experience nerves.

The first strategy to deal with panic is to stop working. Taking a break when panic sets
in is time invested, not wasted. It is much better than letting the panic continue, as a
student is unlikely to work effectively until the panic has gone.

If a student feels panicky during the test, she should put her pencil down, cover the
question sheet so she can’t see it and clasp her hands loosely together. She should
drop her shoulders, uncross her legs and let her body relax and go limp. Then,
breathing slowly and deeply through her nose, she should think only about the
rhythm of her breath, in and out. She should take as long as she needs to feel her mind
calm down.

If her confidence is waning, she could try visualising a space in the house — her
room or desk perhaps — where she has undertaken successful learning. Reflecting
on the preparation you have done together may remind her that she is, in fact, primed
to attempt this test. Hopefully, too, if you have been supportive without undue
pressure, thinking about the preparation you have done together will be associated
with feelings of confidence and joy in learning, and this may buoy her on test day.

When she feels ready to return to the test, she should begin by looking not at the next
question, but at one which she has finished, to review her successful work and build
confidence before moving on. If it’s right at the start of the test and she has not yet
completed a question, she should look through the questions and start with an ‘easy’
one, or one she feels confident with.

This is not the time for intensive study, but you can prepare in other practical
ways. If you do not know how to get to the test centre, try going there at a
similar time a week before the real test to ensure you know what to expect from
traffic and parking, and to ensure you will not be late on the day.
A student will usually sit the test at the school for which she is applying
for the scholarship or select-entry program. In the case of cooperative tests, if
she has applied for places at more than one school, she will usually sit the test
at her first-preference school. If you are distant from the school, most testing
programs will be able to offer you alternative arrangements. If your child is

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not currently attending the school to which she is applying for a scholarship
or select-entry place, it may be worthwhile to arrange for her to tour the school
before the test day. A large private school, filled with alien buildings and —
on test day — a crowd of unknown people, may be an unfamiliar environment
for your child, and could be an overwhelming or intimidating experience. It
may allay her nerves on test day if she is at least a little familiar with the test
centre.
The days leading up to the test should be a time to slow down. Spend time
on activities unrelated to study. Students should exercise, eat healthily and get
plenty of good sleep in the week leading up to, and particularly the night before,
the test.
It may be worthwhile to learn some relaxation or breathing exercises, and to
set in place a strategy your child can use if she feels overwhelmed or panicky
on test day, such as the strategies outlined previously in this chapter.
The day before the test, the student should ensure she has everything she
needs ready and packed. This will include two HB or B pencils, a good quality
pencil eraser and two blue or black pens. There will be short breaks between
sections of the test so you may like to bring something to eat or drink during
the breaks. The student may also need to bring some form of identification in
order to complete the test registration form.
Check with the test organisers or school about what may be brought to the
test. Rulers, mathematical instruments of any kind, programmable watches,
mobile phones, cameras or other image/data capturing devices, books or
notepaper are often not allowed in the test centre.

The day of the test

On the morning of the test, encourage your child to eat a substantial healthy
breakfast. She will have several hours of concentration ahead of her and this
will require a lot of energy.
Give yourself plenty of time to get to the test centre. Aim to be at the test
centre at least 15 minutes prior to the start of the test. This is usually at 8.45 am
but check with the school before the test day. Each student may be required to
­complete a registration form before entering the test centre, so it is important to

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arrive at the time specified by the school even if the test is not due to start until
later.
Latecomers may not be admitted to the test centre. This is at the discretion
of the examination supervisor. Latecomers, if admitted, will not receive any
additional time to complete the test.
Students may be anxious on the way to the school and as they wait to go
into the test centre. A certain amount of anxiety is quite normal. Getting
nervous is a physical response and the effects include increased alertness and
focus, which will be beneficial in the test. Very high levels of anxiety, on the
other hand, may overload the nervous system. It’s a fine line between good and
bad stress, and your safest course of action is to not add to the pressure. Remind
your child that everyone else is feeling the same way, and reassure her that you
are confident she will do her best. If she doesn’t want to talk about the test,
respect that. She may need a few moments of quiet to clear her head and prepare
mentally.

During the test

Once seated for the test, the student should try to relax, give herself time to
answer the questions fully and clarify with the supervisor if she is unsure about
any of the test day procedures.
The test centre should be comfortable for testing, with appropriate lighting,
ventilation, temperature and noise level. All students should be in a position to
hear the supervisor and see a clock. If the student is uncomfortable in any way,
she can ask the supervisor to try to fix the situation.
Your child should pay close attention immediately before the test begins,
when the supervisor addresses the students and runs over test instructions,
such as showing the students where to record the answers to each test. She
should read the instructions on the front cover of each test carefully.
It is important for your child to focus on what she knows, not what she
doesn’t. Remember, many scholarship and selection tests do not require
students to repeat memorised facts and figures; rather, it is looking for the
student’s ability to apply given information and concepts in new situations.
With well-developed problem-solving skills, she should be able to tackle any

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question the test has, even if she has never seen that particular question
before.
It is also imperative that the student manages her time well during the
test. Before the test she should be aware of the tasks she will be expected to
complete within a given time frame. She should have thought about how
long she aims to spend on planning, drafting or on each question. For the
written expression section, practice should have provided the student with a
guide to how long she should spend brainstorming her ideas, drafting and
writing each piece. In the humanities section, she may have, for example, 40
minutes to complete 40 multiple-choice questions. Therefore, she should plan
to spend a little less than a minute on each question, leaving a few minutes at
the end to review her answers. The mathematics section might allow 40
minutes for 32 questions; so the student should plan to spend about a minute
on each.
Many people start from the beginning and work through each question in
order, while others prefer to work on the easiest questions first. The student
should take care when filling in the separate answer sheet to mark all of her
answers against the correct question number, particularly if she is completing
the questions out of order.
Every question is of equal value, so it is unwise to spend too much time on
any question the student might find particularly troublesome. Remember,
though, that no marks are deducted for wrong answers, so it is also best not to
leave any answers blank. If the student finds herself stuck on one question, she
may want to make an informed guess, mark this on the answer sheet and make
a note to return to this question if there is time later. She should remember to
crosscheck that she is marking her answers against the correct question
number.
The questions in each section of a scholarship or selection test fall roughly
into units or subsections, but these may not be flagged in the test question
booklet. Questions within each unit become increasingly more difficult, but as
the test moves to the next unit, the questions will begin again at the lowest level
of difficulty. A saw-tooth pattern, as seen on the following page, is a good way
to think of the difficulty level of the questions throughout the test.

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Increasing difficulty

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Question numbers

There may be 32 questions in a mathematics section, for example. The first

five questions may, for example, be related to a geometric figure, where Question
1 is the easiest and Question 5 the hardest. The next five questions might be
data and probability problems, where Question 6 is the easiest and Question 10
the hardest. In this way, Question 6 may be easier than Question 5 or even
Question 3.
This is not signposted within the test, and a student taking the test may not
be aware of it at all, but the important thing for her to know is that even if she is
stuck on one question that seems particularly difficult, she should not give up
on the rest of the test. If she is stuck on one question, it may very well be the
most difficult question for a topic, and the next question will be the easiest
question for a new topic. She should remain calm and move on, as she may find
the next question quite easy.
A student should try to allow some time at the end of the test to review and
check over her answers. If time is nearly up and there are questions she has not
answered, it is worth taking a guess. She should make sure that her answers are
clear and easy to read, and are all in the correct place.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

At the end of each section of the test, no-one will be allowed to leave the test
centre until all the answer sheets have been collected. There will be a short break
between each section of the test, in which each student should stretch her legs,
perhaps have something to eat or drink and try to clear her head. Remember,
each section of the test is marked independently, so she should try not to let any
concern about her performance in one section influence her approach to the next
section. Each section is another chance to put all the preparation into practice.

Optical Mark Recognition (OMR)

For most scholarship and selection tests, a special answer sheet is provided for the
multiple-choice sections. For each question, there are four small ovals labelled A, B, C
and D. The student will need to record the answer to each question by marking the oval
of her choice with an HB or B pencil. When the test is marked, a computer scans the
answer sheets, using optical mark recognition (OMR) technology.

Because the answer sheet is initially scanned by a machine, there is no room for
interpretation of what each student might have meant to answer on any given question.
The student must make sure that she marks her answer in the oval against the question
she is answering.

Marking one answer next to the wrong question number will not just make that answer
incorrect, but will throw out the rest of the answers. This will be time consuming for a
student to fix if she realises too late that she has marked the answer sheet wrongly. It is
much easier to crosscheck frequently that each answer is marked against the correct
question number.

It is also important that the student:

• uses only an HB or B pencil

• does not use ink, ballpoint pen, felt pen or fine-leaded propelling pencil on any
part of the answer sheet

• does not make any marks on the answer sheet other than in the designated areas

• rubs out any mistakes she makes

• does not fold or tear the answer sheet.

If a student wants to change an answer, she must erase the pencil mark completely and
fill in the oval corresponding to her new answer.

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 Preparing for the day

After the test

After the test is over, be prepared for your child to experience a range of mixed
feelings about how she thinks she performed. No doubt she will be relieved,
and in the luckiest of cases she may even be confident — but it is also quite
normal for students to feel that they could have done better, or to agonise over
imagined mistakes. Don’t assume the worst — your child’s nerves are not
representative of her actual performance.
Almost every student leaving the test centre will be feeling the same way,
and for this reason it is best if you cut short any discussion among students of
who answered what for which question. Your child will almost certainly have
answered some questions differently from other students, and even though her
answers may be correct, if she is already disheartened, this sort of speculation
isn’t going to allay her fears.
Similarly, immediately after the test is not the best time for you to undertake
a debriefing session. Give your child some breathing room, and wait until the
experience is a little less raw before attempting a post-mortem of the test.

Case Study: Trinity Anglican School, White Rock, Queensland

Trinity Anglican School in far north Queensland is an independent

coeducational school catering to around 1200 students from Prep to Year
12. The school comprises a junior school for Prep to Year 7 at White
Rock, a suburb of Cairns; another junior school for Prep to Year 7 at a
campus at Kewarra Beach, on the Marlin Coast; and a senior school for
Years 8 to 12 at White Rock.
Trinity Anglican School Principal Mr Christopher Daunt Watney
says the school enjoys high academic standards within a disciplined
learning environment through a program that caters for the widest range
of student abilities and talents so that staff can focus on each individual.
Trinity Anglican School runs the Cooperative Scholarship Testing
Program at Levels 1, 2 and 3 for students seeking scholarships for entry

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Scholarship and Selection tests

to Years 8, 9 and 11. Students are awarded scholarships to cover part or

all of their school fees for the rest of their education at the school.
Principal of Trinity Anglican School, Mr Christopher Daunt Watney,
says he awards scholarships purely on the basis of the scholarship test
scores. He says that this is one of the key benefits of using an externally
administered and validated test.
‘The scholarship test is an objective measure that has, for a number
of years, provided schools with a very good benchmark in terms of
where individual scholarship candidates rank against a large number of
other students. The benefit to me as a principal is that it is a really good
objective test,’ he says.
It is also a challenging test for candidates, he says, and this places a
responsibility on parents to understand the results of the test. ‘It is
important that parents recognise that the scholarship test measures
their child against some of the brightest students in the country. It is a
competitive test,’ says Mr Daunt Watney.
Preparation is key to your student performing well under this
pressure, he advises. ‘If students are reasonably familiar with the way
in which the testing is conducted and the type of questions that come
up within the test, I think they are going to perform better. Parents
preparing their children should have a look at sample questions, look at
the sort of writing tasks and questions that the children will need to
complete, and be aware of the time constraints of the test,’ he suggests.
The number and mix of scholarships varies from year to year, as Mr
Daunt Watney explains. ‘Depending on the scores, I might offer several
scholarships varying in value from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of tuition
fees, so that I can make what funds I have available for scholarships go
further. The maximum available scholarship constitutes a 75 per cent
remission on tuition fees.’

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Chapter 5 Now what?

Managing expectations
It may be helpful for students and parents to review the expectations and goals
you each have about the scholarship or selection test throughout the process of
preparing for the test, on the day of the test itself, in the time following the test
as you await the results and after the results arrive.
This book has focused on developing a student’s skills and abilities. Rather
than the attainment of a scholarship or select-entry place as the goal, the
emphasis has been placed on the process, and on making that process as useful
to the student as you can.
Parents will naturally have high hopes that their child will receive a
scholarship or select-entry place. Some students do, and your child may be one
of these. The reality is, however, that most students who sit a scholarship or
selection test will not receive a scholarship or select-entry place. The
disappointment of not being awarded a place can be demoralising, especially as
your child is likely to be used to excelling and receiving high marks at school. It
is important to keep in mind that these tests are designed to be challenging for
high-achieving students, and although your child may not receive a place, this
does not mean she has performed poorly. In any group of students sitting a
scholarship or selection test, the overwhelming majority will be students who
achieve in the top 20 per cent of the students nationwide, so logic suggests that
even if your child scores at the lowest end of this range, she may still be achieving
at a high level comparative to the general population for her age group.

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Scholarship and Selection tests

It is also important to remember that individual schools have their own

criteria for awarding places, and these may not be based entirely on the results
of scholarship or selection tests. Your child may perform very well in the test
overall, but not be awarded a scholarship if the school of your choice is looking
particularly for strong mathematics students with demonstrated leadership
qualities, for example, or only awards scholarships to students in financial
need.
Regardless of whether a student receives a place or not, she can review the
results of the test to evaluate her strengths and areas for improvement. Use the
results in a positive way to compare which sections of the test your child did
best on, and areas in which her performance was not as strong as you might
have predicted. This might indicate areas in which she should focus her study
efforts in future.
The first chapter of this book posed some questions to help you clarify your
motivations for registering your child to sit a scholarship or selection test. One
in particular is relevant following the test. Ask yourself, ‘Have I made the
process of preparing for and sitting the test a positive experience for my child
regardless of the outcome?’
In assisting your child to prepare for the test, you have hopefully seen her
develop problem-solving and creative thinking skills that will be useful as she
progresses through school, and as she embarks upon life beyond the school
gates. With any luck, both you and your child have enjoyed the time spent
learning together, and this valuable bonding experience will better enable you
to provide your child with the emotional support she may need when she
receives her test results.

Understanding the meaning of results

Some weeks after a student sits the scholarship or selection test, she will receive
her results from the school of her choice. The testing organisation reports
students’ results to the relevant schools, generally within one month of the test
date. The testing organisation may not report results directly to students.
The key to understanding the test results is a very important point that
has been emphasised throughout this book, but which is worth reiterating.

88
 Now what?

Your child’s performance on a scholarship or selection test is being marked

relative to that of the best students from around the state, interstate and
sometimes even from overseas. The other students are sitting the test because
they believe they are talented enough to have a chance of winning a
scholarship or select-entry place. It is a self-selective group of very high-
achieving students.
To assist you in understanding the meaning of the results, this section will
explain the marking and analysis process that may be undertaken by a testing
organisation. This information is specific to the ACER Scholarship Tests
developed and administered by the Australian Council for Education Research.

Marking

Marking of multiple-choice answer sheets

For mathematics, science and humanities sections that consist of multiple-
choice questions, each student will have marked her answers on a special
answer sheet designed to be scanned by a computer using optical mark
recognition (OMR) software. These answer sheets are marked by computer.

Marking of written responses

The aim of marking scholarship and selection test responses is to find and
exaggerate differences in achievement. Remember that the markers’ task is to
provide information to schools about who the best students are. Not all students
can be awarded high marks. Your child may be the best writer in her class at her
school. If she doesn’t score well on the written expression of the scholarship or
selection test, it doesn’t necessarily mean her classroom teacher is wrong, or
that she is a poor writer. It may simply mean that she was not the best writer, on
the test day, out of a group of other very good writers.
The judging of any form of written response is by its nature somewhat
subjective. Markers use their experience and judgement to decide between
students. Bear in mind, however, that often several highly-qualified markers
will read and reach consensus on each student’s work.
Markers don’t start with one perfect answer in their heads which they hope
to find on the page in front of them. Very often in a writing test, they will give

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Scholarship and Selection tests

full marks to two pieces of writing that offer quite different approaches to the
same topic. Review Chapter 2 of this book, ‘About the tests’, for more detail on
what the markers are looking for in a written expression paper.

How written responses are marked

All answer sheets and papers are marked anonymously. Markers do not know
whose test paper they are marking. The different sections of the tests are
marked in different ways.
The written expression papers are assessed by a team of 40 or so experienced
markers. All markers have teaching experience. The team of markers is
specifically trained in how to mark scholarship test papers by expert lead
markers and test developers.
Each paper is blind-marked by two markers. Tests at some levels will have
required each student to have completed two writing tasks; those two pieces
are separated and marked completely independently. Two markers will assess
each student’s first written paper and two different markers will assess that
same student’s second paper. If there is a discrepancy of more than one mark
between the first and second marking of a given writing piece, it then goes to
discrepancy marking for a third assessment by one of the lead markers.
Frequent crosschecking of marking maintains consistency between markers
and ensures an even distribution of results.

Reported scores
Standardised scores as well as scale scores (for more recent tests in humanities
and in mathematics and science only) are used in the reporting of results. Raw
scores are the number of questions a student answered correctly in each section
of the test. Raw scores are converted to standardised scores to enable above and
below average performance to be easily identified in relation to the performance
of the whole group of students who sat each test. Standardised scores are
generated for each test and also for the student’s total performance on the test.
Scale scores in the humanities test and in the mathematics and science test have
been added to the reporting of some of the more recent tests. These scale scores
allow for direct comparisons to be made across levels and across different tests,
within each subject.

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 Now what?

Comparison groups
Each student’s results show her performance against other students who have
sat the scholarship or selection test. In the case of cooperative testing programs,
where all participating schools hold the test on the same day, the candidature
can include thousands of students. For these tests, your child’s results are
marked comparative to the Australia-wide group of all other students who sat
the test at that level on that day.
In the case of alternate date testing programs, for which participating
schools independently choose a testing date to suit their schedules, the
candidature for a test can be quite small. For these tests, your child’s performance
is measured against a comparison group from a previous administration. For
the ACER Scholarship Tests, this is an Australia-wide cohort of students who
originally sat this test.

Percentiles
You may receive some indication from the results or the school that your child
has performed in the 95th percentile, for example, or the 75th, or the 50th
percentile of students. What does this mean?
It is easy to confuse percentile with per cent, but the two terms are not
interchangeable. As Jan and Stephen Chappuis (2002) explain in their book
Understanding School Assessment: A parent and community guide to helping students
learn, per cent, in this case, could be related to raw scores regardless of other
students’ performance, while percentile is always a form of ranking scores and
comparing students against each other:

Per cent correct refers to the percentage of questions the student answered
correctly and percentile to the percentage of the norm group that the student
outscored. A student who receives a percentile score of 50 on a standardised
test did not get half the items right. That would be a per cent correct score …
Instead, it means she outscored 50 per cent of the students who took the test
during what is called the norming process. (p. 98)

The percentile rank is the point below which a certain proportion of the
students’ scores fall. The 20th percentile, for example, is the score below which

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20 per cent of the students scored. If a student answered 24 questions correctly

out of the 32 questions in the mathematics and science test, for example, then
she scored 75 per cent correct. But, if half the students got more than 24 correct
and the other half got fewer than 24 correct, she will be in the 50th percentile.
So, if you are told that your child is in, for example, the 99th percentile, that
means she has performed better than 99 per cent of the other students. Vice
versa, this also implies she is in the top 1 per cent of students.

Analysis and reporting

After all students’ tests responses have been through the marking, scoring and
reporting processes, schools will receive results from ACER. The standardised
score represents how your child performed overall in relation to all other
students sitting the test.
The reporting of results to each student will indicate how that student
performed relative to the Australia-wide cohort who sat the same set of tests,
both overall and in each test, in terms of percentile ranks.
In some cases, your child’s overall performance may be considerably higher
or lower than her performance on an individual test. As an example, a student
might have performed very well in the written expression section but slightly
below average rank on the mathematics and science section. She might receive
an overall rank just above average, because the high written expression score
has pulled the overall rank up.
A student who performs just below an average level on all sections of the
test may rank very low in the overall performance, because most students have
strengths and weaknesses, and relatively few achieve low scores on all sections.
A student who receives a scholarship or select-entry place based on her test
scores may not have achieved the top score in all sections of the test. She may,
for example, have scored well in humanities, well in maths and science, and
about average in written expression. Overall, these section scores may ensure
she is ranked at the top of the overall merit order, because she has done better
overall compared to, say, a student who achieved consistently a bit above
average for all sections of the test.
This information may be helpful as you prepare for the test. If you know
your child excels at reading and writing but is not as strong in maths, for

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 Now what?

example, it may be worth concentrating on her maths skills just enough that her
overall score is not dragged down by a low score in the mathematics section.
As mentioned earlier in this book, it is also worth contacting your first-
preference school before the test, to find out what qualities and strengths the
school is looking for in its scholarship and select-entry students. This may allow
you to consider whether your child is suited to that school, or to focus
preparation on ensuring your child meets the requirements of that school.

Requests for information

In very rare cases, some parents wish to appeal the results of their child’s
scholarship or selection test. If you think there is something wrong with your
child’s results, there is a procedure you can follow.
First, you should contact the testing organisation. There may be an
identifiable reason that a student has not performed as well as expected. If a
student has scored low on one of the multiple-choice tests, for example, it may
be that the form was not filled in because the student marked her answers in
the question booklet. While this cannot always be remedied, it can be checked,
and so you will better understand your child’s results.
General queries may be able to be answered over the phone or via email;
however, if your query requires the testing organisation to access your child’s
test papers and answer sheets, you will need to submit a formal request for this
information. (Note that documentation is unlikely to be held for any great
length of time after the marking period. If you have a query more than several
months after receiving test results, it may not be possible to retrieve test papers
and answer sheets.)
If the testing organisation advises that you need to submit a formal request
for information, the organisation may direct you to download a personal
information request form. The testing organisation should then retrieve the
student’s test papers and answer sheets from secure storage.
In some cases, written responses may be rechecked or multiple-choice
answer sheets may be hand-scored by expert markers. This process may take
several weeks. In addition, an administrative fee is likely to be payable for
this service.

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When this process is complete, you will receive copies of the written
expression papers and of the multiple-choice answer sheets, and reissued a
student report.
You will not receive copies of test booklets or questions, as this information
is commercial in-confidence. Scholarship and selection tests are secure
instruments, and any public viewing of test questions would compromise
further administration of the tests.
Testing organisations will not disclose the merit listing of students. Parents
may have a strong desire to know where their child was ranked in relation to
other students, but testing organisations will not disclose any information that
could be construed as an invasion of any student’s privacy.

Comparison with national tests

You may want to know how your child’s results on the scholarship or selection test compare
with her results on other testing programs, such as the National Assessment Program —
Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). It is impossible to compare these sets of results.

Scholarship and selection tests assess different skills than national tests such as NAPLAN,
so comparing your child’s scores from each will not tell you anything meaningful.

The results of scholarship and selection tests are also reported differently to the results
of national tests such as NAPLAN. NAPLAN results show how students have performed
compared to a set of established standards; for example, when reading a text, whether
the student can locate specific information, connect ideas, recognise the motivations of
characters and so on. Scholarship and selection tests only show how students have
performed compared to the other students sitting the test.

Scholarship and selection tests also assess a different set of students than national tests
such as NAPLAN. Remember that standardised scores show a student’s performance
relative to the performance of the other students who sat the test. The candidatures for
the scholarship and selection tests and for the national tests are not the same, so the
scores cannot be compared. Standardised scores for scholarship and selection tests
apply to a special student population of above average ability, while national testing
results apply to the general population of students.

You may find that your child got very good results in national testing programs, but
has been ranked quite low on a scholarship or selection test. Remember that even if a
student scores at the lowest end of the scholarship or selection test candidature range,

94
 Now what?

she may still be achieving at a high level comparative to the general population for her
age group.

Parents sometimes express concern that a low score on a scholarship or selection test
means that their child needs tutoring or remedial help. Some parents even worry that a
low score means their child has a learning disability. This is unlikely to be the case. If
your child is performing well in school, has scored well in national testing and is
enjoying learning at home with you, it is more likely that she simply found the
scholarship or selection test challenging because these tests are designed to be
challenging, even for high-achieving students.

These are difficult tests; therefore, to achieve at any level in these tests indicates a good
standard of achievement in the areas assessed.

Case study: St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, Gippsland, Victoria

St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, in the Gippsland region of Victoria’s

south-east, is an independent coeducational school catering to
approximately 1600 students from Prep to Year 12. The school comprises
an Early Learning Centre to Year 10 campus in Traralgon; an Early
Learning Centre to Year 12 campus in Warragul; and a Year 9 Centre on
a separate site in Warragul.
The school offers academic and general excellence scholarships for
students in Years 5 to 11. Approximately 50 students sit the scholarship
tests each year for about five scholarship places across the school.
St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School’s Head of Admissions, Mrs
Amanda Bibby, explains that the school looks at the overall results of
students’ performance on the scholarship test.
‘The academic scholarships are awarded based on student results in
the scholarship test and interviews with students. The general excellence
scholarships are based on the test results and students applications,
which include details about students’ involvement in community

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Scholarship and Selection tests

service, performing arts and sport, as well as copies of their school

reports,’ Mrs Bibby says.
‘We generally don’t look particularly for students strong in any given
area; we don’t prioritise maths over literacy or vice versa. We aim to
identify well-rounded students with very strong academic performance,’
she says.
St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School offers partial scholarships to
cover varying amounts of students’ costs to study at the school from
entry through to the end of Year 12.
‘One of the most common questions we get from parents concerning
the scholarships is about what level of remission off the school fees we
award to scholarship recipients. That’s a really difficult question for us
to answer until we’ve seen the students’ test results and applications.
We really don’t offer full scholarships, because we like the parents to
contribute as well,’ Mrs Bibby says.
‘Parents also ask for advice about how they can help their children to
practise for the scholarship test. We advise them to make the most of the
practice materials available from the testing organisation,’ she says.
Ultimately, Mrs Bibby says, the best advice the school can offer students
and parents about the scholarship test is to manage their expectations.
Parents should keep in mind that scholarship tests are designed to
be difficult for high-achieving students, but that, regardless of the
outcome of the test, the process of preparing for the test can be a positive
learning experience for their child.
‘We offer scholarships to maybe one in ten of the students who sit
the scholarship test. And yet, some parents do get quite upset when
their child doesn’t get a scholarship. Parents need to be aware that the
scholarship process is very competitive, and prepare for the possibility
that their child may not be successful, even though their child may be
an excellent student,’ Mrs Bibby says.

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Appendix 1: Description of specific
scholarship tests

ACER scholarship tests

The ACER Scholarship Tests consist of a series of academic ability tests used to
select students for the award of a scholarship. Independent schools around
Australia choose a testing date which best suits their school needs. Schools can
choose to take part in a cooperative program where schools share results, or to
hold the test on a date of their choice where candidates must sit at the school on
that date.
The ACER Scholarship Tests are used by approximately 250 independent
schools across Australia to identify academically able students for the award of
a scholarship. The tests are designed to rank order students, finely discriminating
at the top end of performance.
The tests require students to demonstrate a range of skills such as the ability
to interpret, infer, deduce and think critically. They are not curriculum based
and do not test the ability to retrieve learned knowledge.

Levels of examination
The levels of examination are shown in the table below:
STATE PRIMARY LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3
ACT
NSW
Current Current Current Current
NT
Year 3/4/5 Year 6/7 Year 8/9 Year 10/11
TAS
VIC
SA
Current Current Current Current
WA
Year 4/5/6 Year 7/8 Year 9 Year 10/11
QLD

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Appendix 1

Test structure

Primary level
The test available at the primary level has been developed by ACER for use by
those schools that wish to offer scholarships at upper primary levels. The test
can also be administered as part of entry placement procedures or as a
scholarship test at any time convenient to the school wishing to use it.
The test has three sections: two in multiple-choice format and one in written
expression format. The program consists of two short writing tasks; a humanities
section of 25 multiple-choice questions; and a mathematics section of 20
multiple-choice questions involving addition, subtraction, multiplication or
division. This test usually takes students about 2.5 hours to complete, including
administration and breaks.
Section 1 Section 2 Section 3
30 minutes 30 minutes 40 minutes
Primary Reading and Viewing Mathematics Writing
(25 multiple-choice questions) (20 multiple-choice questions) (two short pieces)

Secondary level
The test at the secondary level has four sections: two in written expression
format and two in multiple-choice format. This test runs for approximately
three hours, including administration and breaks.
Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4
25 minutes 40 minutes 40 minutes 25 minutes
Level 1 Written Humanities: Comprehension and Mathematics Written
Expression Interpretation Expression
(32 multiple-choice
(one piece) (40 multiple-choice questions) questions) (one piece)
Level 2 Written Humanities: Comprehension and Science/ Written
Expression Interpretation Mathematics Expression
(one piece) (40 multiple-choice questions) (32 multiple-choice (one piece)
questions)
Level 3 Written Humanities: Comprehension and Science/ Written
Expression Interpretation Mathematics Expression
(one piece) (40 multiple-choice questions) (32 multiple-choice (one piece)
questions)

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 Appendix 1

Cooperative programs
The cooperative programs involve a large number of schools testing on the
same test date. Candidates may register for several schools, sit the test once and
have their results reported to all schools to which they have applied within the
cooperative program. Where candidates register for more than one school they
are required to list, in order of preference, all schools to which they have applied.
Schools may make offers to any student regardless of the preference order
specified by the candidate. Parents will be advised to carefully select the
preference order as some schools will only consider students that have listed
their school as the first preference.
The Australian Cooperative Entry Program is used in South Australia for
students in their final year of primary school for entry into first year of
secondary school. The test has four sections: two in written expression format
and two in multiple-choice format. This test runs for approximately three hours,
including administration and breaks.

Alternate date programs

Schools that don’t elect to be part of a cooperative program may wish to select
their own testing date. If an alternate date is chosen, candidates will be advised
to attend the school and sit the test on a nominated date.

Further information and resources

Further information about participating schools and test dates can be found at
<www.acer.edu.au/scholarship>.
To purchase practice test materials or any other resources, shop online at
<http://shop.acer.edu.au> or visit the ACER Bookshop at <http://www.
acerbookshop.com.au>. Practice test materials for purchase include:
• Sample Collection of Questions, Volume 2 (ACER, 2004)
• ACER Scholarship Sample Test (2012)
• Online Practice Tests (ACER, 2012)

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Appendix 2: Description of specific
selection tests, select-entry schools and
programs

Selection tests

Higher Ability Selection Test (HAST)

HAST is an ability test used by secondary schools to identify academically
gifted students for participation in accelerated learning and enhancement
programs. The program delivers rigorous tests in reading comprehension,
mathematical reasoning, abstract reasoning and written expression at all levels
of secondary school including first-level entry.
HAST is designed to measure innate ability and academic potential unlike
curriculum based tests that typically identify what a student has already
learned.
For more information see <http://www.acer.edu.au/tests/hast-secondary>.

Higher Ability Selection Test – primary (HAST-P)

The HAST-P helps with assessment and placement at the middle primary level
by determining which students are working at higher levels than their peers.
Results from this test can be used to verify existing information about a student
or discriminate between those students already identified at the top end of
performance.
HAST-P can be used for whole cohort testing or as a second stage screening
instrument to discriminate more finely between highly able students at the
upper end of the scale.
For more information see <http://www.acer.edu.au/tests/hast-primary>.

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 Appendix 2

ACER General Ability Tests (AGAT)

The ACER General Ability Tests (AGAT) is a test of general intellectual ability
suitable for students in Years 2 to 10. AGAT is designed to assist teachers in
their assessment of students’ learning potential and overall aptitude.
Each test includes verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning items, giving a
comprehensive picture of students’ general ability.
For more information see <http://www.acer.edu.au/tests/agat>.

Middle Years Ability Test (MYAT)

The Middle Years Ability Test (MYAT) is a test of general ability designed to assist
teachers in their assessment of students aged 10–15 years. The test can also be
used to help in identification of gifted and talented students.
As well as verbal and numerical reasoning items, MYAT includes non-verbal
(or abstract) reasoning items, giving a more complete picture of students’ general
ability.
For more information see <https://shop.acer.edu.au/acer-shop/group/MYAT>.

Abstract Reasoning Test (ART)

The ACER Abstract Reasoning Test (ART) assesses student ability to use non-
verbal reasoning skills. Such reasoning is widely applicable across the
curriculum, and beyond school, and is related to scholastic outcomes. Abstract
items require students to solve problems by hypothesising, identifying and
applying patterns and relationships presented in diagrammatic form.
Five levels of testing are available for students in Years 4 to 10 and above
and are suitable for the general population and/or gifted students.
For more information see <http://www.acer.edu.au/tests/art>.

Select-entry schools

Victoria
There are currently four selective entry schools in Victoria for students in Years
9−12: Melbourne High (boys only), The Mac Robertson Girls’ High (girls only),

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Appendix 2

Nossal High School (co-educational) and Suzanne Cory High School

(co-educational). A centralised selection process is used to admit students to
these schools and includes a common entrance examination.
For more information see <http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/
parents/secondary/pages/selective.aspx>.

New South Wales

In New South Wales there are 17 fully selective high schools, 25 high schools
with selective classes (partially selective), a virtual selective class provision
(Western NSW Region) and 4 agricultural high schools offering selective
placement in Year 7. Entry is determined by the student’s results in the Selective
High School Placement Test, together with their primary school’s assessment of
their performance in English and mathematics.
For more information see <http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/
types/shs_ahs_details.php>.

Queensland
Brisbane State High School is currently the only selective entry public school in
Queensland. Academic merit entry is based on an academic test in combination
with school results and is available for entry into Years 8 and 11. Enrolment for
cultural and sporting merit is offered across several year levels.
For more information see < https://brisbaneshs.eq.edu.au/
general-information>.

Western Australia
There are currently two selective schools in Western Australia. They are the
Perth Modern School and John Curtin College of the Arts. Selection into these
schools is based on the results of the Academic Selective Entrance Test.
For more information see <http://www.det.wa.edu.au/curriculumsupport/
giftedandtalented/detcms/navigation/parents/selective-schools/>.

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 Appendix 2

Select-entry programs

Victoria

Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) program

In Victoria, there are currently 36 secondary schools that offer the Select Entry
Accelerated Learning (SEAL) program. The SEAL program aims to focus on the
learning needs of gifted and high potential students who are capable of working
at a faster pace and in greater depth than their peers. Students usually complete
years 7–10 in three years, which gives them an extended range of options for
their final years of schooling.
Secondary Schools with SEAL programs are situated throughout
metropolitan Melbourne and rural Victoria. Each school is responsible for
determining its own selection criteria.
For more information see <www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/
learningdev/pages/seal.aspx>.

New South Wales

New South Wales Selective High Schools Placement

In New South Wales, students seeking placement in Year 7 at a selective high
school must take the Selective High School Placement Test. There is a test for
Year 7 entry and a test for entry in Years 8–12.
For more information for Year 7 entry see <http://www.schools.nsw.edu.
au/learning/k-6assessments/shsplacement/index.php>.
For more information for Year 8–12 entry see <http://www.schools.nsw.
edu.au/learning/7-12assessments/selective8_12.php>.
Please note: entry to selective high schools in Years 8 to 12 does not depend
on a centralised program as entry to Year 7 does.

Opportunity Class Placement

Opportunity classes are for academically gifted and talented children in Years
5 and 6. These classes exist in schools throughout New South Wales. They
provide intellectual stimulation and a rich educational environment.

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Appendix 2

Opportunity class entry does not depend entirely on a student’s performance

in the Opportunity Class Placement Test as school assessment scores in English
and mathematics are provided by the primary schools.
For more information see <http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/
learning/k-6assessments/ocplacement.php>

Queensland

Queensland Government’s Queensland Academies

There are three specialist state high schools for Queensland’s high achieving
Year 10–12 students. These schools offer the opportunity to study with like-
minded students through an internationally recognised curriculum. Acting as
a bridge between high school and tertiary study, the Academies are designed to
maximise the potential of bright students and prepare them for university.
Students interested in enrolment for Year 10 at the Queensland Academies
have several opportunities to sit the Entrance Test for the Queensland
Academies.
Three schools are currently part of the program: The Queensland Academy
for Science, Mathematics and Technology (QASMT) at Toowong, the Queensland
Academy for Creative Industries (QACI) at Kelvin Grove and the Queensland
Academy for Health Sciences (QAHS) on the Gold Coast.
For more information see <http://www.qldacademies.eq.edu.au/>.

South Australia

South Australia’s Secondary Assessment Program for Gifted Children

(IGNITE)
The Ignite program is funded by the South Australian Department of Education
and Children’s Services. Three secondary schools, Aberfoyle Park High School,
Glenunga International High School and The Heights School, operate as a
consortium. These three schools have been provided with resources to
specifically cater for the needs of highly gifted students.
The Ignite program recognises the individual needs of gifted students and
therefore offers flexibility in student learning. Students are selected for entry

104
 Appendix 2

into this program on the basis of performance in an ACER assessment. When

the results come back from ACER, students are invited to an interview on the
basis of their ranking in the test.
For more information see <http://www.igniteprogram.com.au/selection.
shtml>.

Western Australia

Government of Western Australia’s Gifted and Talented programs

Gifted and Talented programs are offered at 16 select public secondary schools
in Western Australia. Students study with other gifted students and follow a
curriculum designed specifically for their needs. They can apply to join one of
three programs: a Selective Academic program, a Selective Language program
or a Selective Arts program.
All applicants for Gifted and Talented programs need to sit the Academic
Selective Entrance Test and may also need to complete combined workshops,
auditions and interviews, depending on the programs they are applying for.
For more information see <http://www.det.wa.edu.au/curriculumsupport/
giftedandtalented/detcms/navigation/parents/?oid=MultiPartArticle-id-4631873)>.

105
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Scholarship and
Selection Tests

Schola r s hip and s election te s ts

A guide for students and parents
2nd edition
Scholarship and selection tests aim to identify the very best students for elite schools and accelerated learning
programs. Many outstanding students sit these tests, but there are relatively few scholarship and select-entry
places offered. To be of any use, scholarship and selection tests must identify very small differences in the
academic performance of very high-achieving students. The tests are demanding and the process can be
very competitive.
As a result, preparing, applying and sitting for a scholarship or selection test can be a challenging process
for students and parents — but this experience can also provide an opportunity for students to develop
their academic skills and abilities in valuable ways.
Scholarship and Selection Tests: A guide for students and parents aims to help students and
parents to better understand scholarship and selection tests, so that students can develop their full potential
and parents can support their children do their best when it counts. This second edition contains:
• updated advice on preparing for scholarship and selection tests, including all-new:

Scholarship and
◗◗ information on dealing with gifted and talented students

◗◗ resources on select-entry accelerated, high-achievement and gifted and talented programs

◗◗ details on specific scholarship and selection tests

◗◗ case studies and insights from participating schools

•
Selection Tests
example questions and sample answers with detailed explanations, strategies and approaches
•
2nd e d it i on
suggestions on how students can develop the skills and abilities the tests target
• guidance on how to manage expectations and better understand results.

A guide for students and parents

Cover images: © AISPIX by Image Source | Shutterstock.com ISBN 978-1-74286-156-2
© Dmitri Mikitenko | Shutterstock.com
2nd edition

9 781742 861562