Do the test: Revamped General Achievement Test revealed
New sample questions for the General Achievement Test, including “real world” scenarios, have been released. Can you answer them?
Education
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Moving out of home, concert tickets and a boss’s email warning to staff about food going off in the fridge are examples of hypothetical scenarios that will be used to assess VCE and VCAL students during this year’s revamped General Achievement Test.
Students’ literacy and numeracy skills will be tested during the two-part assessment, with the reforms designed to bring the GAT up to date with other states and territories by giving students a more detailed review of their reading, writing and maths skills.
Sample questions for the first portion of the standardised test were released on Tuesday, and included a range of multiple choice questions, such as asking students to calculate workers’ hourly rates and tuition fees.
They will also be assessed using scenarios such as a guest leaving a negative hotel review, using online chat forums and comparing internet providers’ various download speeds.
Fifty numeracy related multiple choice questions and 50 reading-based multiple choice questions will also be included in the first section.
The second part of the exam will look similar to previous GAT assessments, but will focus more on critical and creative thinking skills in English, maths, science, technology, the arts and humanities with a 90-minute extended writing task.
Students will also be required to complete 25 multiple choice questions on maths, science and technology, as well as 25 arts and humanities-focused questions.
The changes, first revealed in February, mean students will be told whether they have the reading and mathematics skills expected of someone leaving high school.
In another first, the results will also be published on students’ VCE or Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) certificates, but the GAT scores will not contribute to their ATAR unless a derived score is needed.
About 90,000 students will sit the new-look GAT on September 7 as VCAL students and those sitting an unscored VCE sit the test for the first time, but VCAL students will not sit the second section of the test.
Despite the changes, students are not required to study in preparation for the statewide assessment.
Education Minister James Merlino said the shift to questions about the “real-world” will give students an idea of what to expect in the new test.
“The GAT is changing to give Victorian students just another thing to prove to future employers and educators that they’ve had a great secondary education,” he said.
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) chief executive Stephen Gniel said: “Providing these sample questions to teachers and students now is part of our plan to support schools and VCAL providers as they prepare to administer the reformed GAT in September.”
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