The Year 9 NAPLAN is often one of the first steps taken towards your child’s future after high school.
With our guide to the Year 9 NAPLAN, we’ll help you get an understanding of the test. We’ll also explain what you need to know about each NAPLAN test your child will sit. Even more, we’ll show you where your child will get their marks!
So, without further ado — let’s get started!
The Exams
Reading
Writing
Language Conventions
Numeracy
Practice Papers
The Exams
Now, testing bodies are not often renowned for their generosity when it comes to national testing. But, the Year 9 NAPLAN is a spectacular exception!
Instead of being tested in all four skillset areas individually,your son or daughter will only need to sit three exams.Hooray! The structure is as such:
- Test 1 – Reading & Writing
- Test 2 – Language Conventions
- Test 3 – Numeracy
If your child is sitting the exams in the paper format, then these three tests will occur consecutively over three days. Your child’s testing dates will, however, be different if their school is testing in the online format.
You can explore more information regarding online testinghere.
Let’s have a look at each skillset area, and what you should expect:
Reading
Don’t forget your glasses for this test, because you’ll need them!The reading element of test one assesses how well your child can read and comprehend texts of varying difficulty. These texts range from narratives and feature articles to poems and essays.
文本周围的问题取决于圣yle of the text. For example, when presented with an argument, your child may be assessed upon whether they can interpret the overall tone of the piece. In contrast, students will be challenged to identify the main message being portrayed whilst comprehending poems.
A breakdown of whichtext typesmay be included, andwhat is assessedis below:
| Style of Text | Students are assessed upon whether they can: |
|---|---|
| Complex Narrative | - Locate a directly stated detail - Connect ideas across a paragraph or across the text to interpret a description or the motivation of characters - Infer the main idea - Interpret and evaluate a character’s behaviour and attitude - Interpret dialogue to describe a character - Interpret the reasons for a character's response - Connect ideas to interpret figurative language - Interpret the effect of a short sentence |
| Poem | - Identify the main idea of the poem |
| Complex Biographical Text | - Locate a directly stated idea in the text |
| Complex Information | - Locate directly stated information - Connect ideas in the introduction of the text or in the body of the text and illustrations - Identify the main purpose of a text or an element of the text - Identify the main idea of a paragraph - Identify the purpose of a labelled diagram - Identify the intended audience of the text - Identify conventions used in a text, such as abbreviations or italics for a foreign word |
| Persuasive Text (e.g. Argument) | - Connect ideas across the text or in two arguments - Identify the tone of an argument |
Courtesy nap.edu.au
Wondering how complex these texts will be? As a gauge, you can use theexample reading booklet.
Check out our guide to NAPLAN Reading for Year 9 studentshere!
Writing
After averyhealthy dose of reading, your son or daughter will then start the Writing section. This part of the Year 9 NAPLAN assesses two main abilities — those being your child’s ability to craftsophisticated writing, whilst also appropriately responding to their questionandstimulus.
The questions direct students to compose compelling copy in one of three forms:
- Imaginative writing – including narrative writing
- Persuasive writing
- Informative writing
It’s important to note that since 2008, only imaginative and persuasive forms have been tested.Informative writing has not yet been tested in the Year 9 NAPLAN.
In terms of stimuli, your child’s stimulus could be, well, anything! A past imaginative writing stimulus isThe Box. The stimulusCity or Countryhas been used for persuasive form.
The marking criteria differ slightly between each form style. They are detailed below:
Narrative Writing
| Marking criterion | Description of narrative writing marking criterion |
|---|---|
| Audience | The writer’s capacity to orient, engage and affect the reader |
| Text structure | The organisation of narrative features including orientation, complication and resolution into an appropriate and effective text structure |
| Ideas | The creation, selection and crafting of ideas for a narrative |
| Character and setting | Character: The portrayal and development of character |
| Setting: The development of a sense of place, time and atmosphere | |
| Vocabulary | The range and precision of contextually appropriate language choices |
| Cohesion | The control of multiple threads and relationships across the text, achieved through the use of grammatical elements (referring words, text connectives, conjunctions) and lexical elements (substitutions, repetitions, word associations) |
| Paragraphing | The segmenting of text into paragraphs that assists the reader to negotiate the narrative |
| Sentence structure | The production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences |
| Punctuation | 正确和适当的标点符号的使用aid the reading of the text |
| Spelling | The accuracy of spelling and the difficulty of the words used |
Persuasive Writing
| Marking criterion | Description of persuasive writing marking criterion |
|---|---|
| Audience | The writer’s capacity to orient, engage and persuade the reader |
| Text structure | The organisation of the structural components of a persuasive text (introduction, body and conclusion) into an appropriate and effective text structure |
| Ideas | The selection, relevance and elaboration of ideas for a persuasive argument |
| Persuasive devices | The use of a range of persuasive devices to enhance the writer’s position and persuade the reader |
| Vocabulary | The range and precision of contextually appropriate language choices |
| Cohesion | The control of multiple threads and relationships across the text, achieved through the use of grammatical elements (referring words, text connectives, conjunctions) and lexical elements (substitutions, repetitions, word associations) |
| Paragraphing | The segmenting of text into paragraphs that assists the reader to follow the line of argument |
| Sentence structure | The production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences |
| Punctuation | 正确和适当的标点符号的使用aid the reading of the text |
| Spelling | The accuracy of spelling and the difficulty of the words used |
Courtesy nap.edu.au
Language Conventions
Although the title implies it, this exam is not a convention celebrating different languages — it’s something even better. It’s the part of the NAPLAN where your child’sspelling, punctuation and grammarabilities are tested. Yay!
Spelling
This spelling section of the Year 9 NAPLAN will present your son or daughter with one or two possible prompts. They may be asked to identify a misspelt word, and in some cases, provide the correct spelling. Or, they may be asked just to write the correct spelling. This is the case with the below example:
Spelling questions are usually isolated to spelling errors only. This is a pose to punctuation and grammar, which can often be combined.
Punctuation
There are a few different punctuation skills assessed in this part of your child’s NAPLAN testing. Questions focusing on simple forms of punctuation, like full-stops and question marks, are usually omitted, as they are tested in earlier years. The punctuation knowledge assessed in the Year 9 NAPLAN surrounds:
- Quotation Marks
- Commas
- Colons
- Semi-colons
- Dashes (Hyphens)
- Ellipsis Marks
- Apostrophes
- Italics
Below is an example of an apostrophe-focussed question:
Grammar
Ahhh! Sure to be your son or daughter’s favourite part of the test!
The grammar element of the Year 9 NAPLAN examines a few key features of language. These includetensesand thecorrect form of functions(such as identifying comparative adjectives).
Also included are questions which ask you to identify thefunction of a word in context, andchoosing the correct function. Below is an example of the latter:
Numeracy
Last, but not least, is the numeracy exam! The year 9 NAPLAN Numeracy test measures your child’s proficiency in three content strands of mathematics:
- Numbers & Algebra
- Measurement & Geometry
- Statistics & Probability
Within these three areas, your child’s mathematical understanding, fluency, problem-solving and reasoning abilities are assessed.
There have recently been changes to the Year 9 NAPLAN Numeracy test. Don’t worry — they’re generous. Previously, students have sat through 64 questions divided into two periods. However, now, there’s onlyone test session with just 48 questions. Woohoo!
These questions are a combination of both multiple choice and constructed response. Below is an example of a constructed response:
The test has a part A (where calculators are allowed), and a part B (where calculators are not allowed).
Practice Papers
Now, it’s time for your child to put all of that knowledge to good use!
Whilst it is not completely necessary to prepare extensively for the NAPLAN, completing practice papers can help your child. Light preparation can help your child familiarise themselves with the test and ease their exam-day nerves.
We’ve compiled all the available Year 9 NAPLAN test papers for you and your child! Access ourMaster List of NAPLAN Practice Tests here.
Our NAPLAN Series
We’ve written a whole series of articles to help you and your children navigate the NAPLAN. Check out the rest of our series with the links below!
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