NAPLAN testing is a critical qualification for both students and schools.

These examinations will increase in importance as the awarding of HSC qualifications becomes dependant on achieving a band 8 result in year 9 NAPLAN tests or in similar alternative tests available to students in the years to come.

It is expected that the ACARA NAPLAN papers will be completed online in the near future. In anticipation of this change, our online Trial paper offers an opportunity to familiarise students with this examination process under timed conditions and within a school environment.

The trial is designed to allow students to feel as close as possible to the real exam.

The Specifics

- There will be one exam paper for Year 7 and another exam for Year 9.

- In every exam a timer will be displayed throughout the test.

- In each of the Year 9 and Year 7 exam papers the students will have two sections, a “Calculator Allowed” section and a “Non Calculator” section.

- In each section of every exam a timer will be displayed throughout each section.

- Students will receive time warnings at various points throughout each section of the exam.

- Students will be able to move back through their paper and change their choice of answers while that section of the test is still open.

- When the time is over, the students’ selected answers will be automatically submitted.

- Once students have logged into the exam, their computer will be blocked from accessing all other sites, screen copy and all other functions of the computer, including the calculator.

- The questions will be similar to the current style of the NAPLAN examinations. Some of them will be multiple choice and others will be short answers.

- The school’s NAPLAN coordinator will receive, for each student, a spreadsheet showing the answers the student chose, indicating if they are correct or incorrect, and their mark.

- Also, for each question, the coordinator will have the percentage of students who answered it correctly and the Average of the students as well as the Standard Deviation.

- The coordinator will also be able to see, for each question, a list of the students who answered it correctly and incorrectly, as well as the incorrect answers each student selected.

- The questions can also be grouped by the syllabus substrands from which they come or in order, according to the number of students who answered incorrectly.

- The coordinator will be able to create “class” groups to identify strengths and weaknesses.

- These different methods of arranging the data produced by the students’ responses should allow schools to identify and target problem areas for a grade or a class. The data available will also provide feedback on the strengths and weakness of individual students as well as class or grade cohorts.