NAPLAN quizzes kids on direction, maths and a monster named Nom Nom

UPDATE: Thousands of Victorians have tackled NAPLAN, acing spelling but struggling with pronouns and distance. TAKE THE TEST

Student Steph Allawi hopes she aced this year’s NAPLAN tests. Picture: David Crosling

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UPDATE: Thousands of Victorians have tackled NAPLAN with results revealing they aced spelling but struggled to identify pronouns and calculate distances.

The Herald Sun has exclusively revealed the questions posed to grade 3 and 5 pupils in this year’s ­standardised tests.

The students were quizzed on their times tables, basic directions and a text about a monster, Nom Nom, that stole kids’ lunches.

NAPLAN RESULTS SHOW FLATLINING LITERACY AND NUMERACY SCORES

INNER SOUTHEAST LEADING MELBOURNE’S NAPLAN RESULTS

Herald Sun quizzes — snapshots of NAPLAN’s numeracy and language convention questions — have recorded more than 2500 responses.

Most respondents aced grade 3 questions on counting, number conversions and spelling.

But more than two thirds stumbled when nominating the two pronouns in the phrase: “He will finish the book and give it to the teacher”.

Less than half were also unable to correctly say whether “arrival” in the sentence “the sudden arrival of the thunderstorm surprised us” was an adjective, adverb, noun or verb.

A third of respondents skipped a similar question in the grade 5 quiz.

They were also tripped up by a question that asked them to add distances and convert it from kilometres to metres.

Answers to a mind-bending calculation of how many people were in a line ranged from 19 to 53.

More than a million students across Australia, including those in years 7 and 9, sat the tests across three days earlier this month.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority spent up to 18 months developing the papers, which are not publicly released.

Chief executive officer Robert Randall said every question was designed to test against the curriculum.

“I don’t know that I say they’re always fun, but the questions are engaging, stimulating and challenging,” he said. “NAPLAN focuses on the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy.

“We try to stretch the questions — some are easier and some are harder — because we want to useful data on exactly where a young person is.”

Grade 3 pupils tackled 36 numeracy and 50 language convention questions.

They also analysed texts about a lamb caught in a dust storm, robots in classrooms, tiny houses and bubbles that “smell just like apples”.

Grade 5 students were quizzed about a monster named Nom Nom who nicks children’s lunches, a beached whale and the Burrunan dolphin. The were also asked to fix the incorrect spelling of words, including whistle, mother and columns.

The questions could be set for a shake-up — with videos and interactive graphics added — when the test moves online.

All students sat pen and paper exams this year after a problem-plagued online trial was abandoned.

“While we are in a transition period, we will need to make sure the online tests and paper and pen tests continue to be comparable,” Mr Randall said. “Once we’ve got everyone online, we will use features that technology bring.”

Grade 3 pupil Stephanie Allawi, from St Peter’s Primary School, could not wait to crack her first NAPLAN paper.

“I was a little bit excited for this test,” she said. “It was pretty fun. I liked the maths one better. I hope I got a lot correct and I hope I passed.”

Mum Diane Allawi said Stephanie was carefree compared with her older daughter, Madison, who had hit the books and practised tests before tackling NAPLAN for the first time.

“My older daughter, who is in grade 6 now, stressed out about it,” Ms Allawi said.

“They try to make it as comfortable as they can and Stephanie is a bit more laid-back. She was never too concerned.”

Preliminary results from the NAPLAN tests are expected to be released between late July and early August.

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@moniquehore