BlogNAPLANThe Ultimate Guide To The Year 9 NAPLAN

The Ultimate Guide To The Year 9 NAPLAN

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 Year 9 NAPLAN 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 testing here.

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.

Questions surrounding the texts depend upon the style 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.

Boost your child’s confidence with Year 9 NAPLAN tutoring!

A breakdown of which text types may be included, and what is assessed is below:

Style of TextStudents 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 the example reading booklet.

Check out our guide to NAPLAN Reading for Year 9 students here!

Writing

After a very healthy 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 craft sophisticated writing, whilst also appropriately responding to their question and stimulus.

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 is The Box. The stimulus City or Country has been used for persuasive form.

The marking criteria differ slightly between each form style. They are detailed below:

Narrative Writing

Marking criterionDescription of narrative writing marking criterion
AudienceThe writer’s capacity to orient, engage and affect the reader
Text structureThe organisation of narrative features including orientation, complication and resolution into an appropriate and effective text structure
IdeasThe creation, selection and crafting of ideas for a narrative
Character and settingCharacter: The portrayal and development of character
Setting: The development of a sense of place, time and atmosphere
VocabularyThe range and precision of contextually appropriate language choices
CohesionThe 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)
ParagraphingThe segmenting of text into paragraphs that assists the reader to negotiate the narrative
Sentence structureThe production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences
PunctuationThe use of correct and appropriate punctuation to aid the reading of the text
SpellingThe accuracy of spelling and the difficulty of the words used

Persuasive Writing

Marking criterionDescription of persuasive writing marking criterion
AudienceThe writer’s capacity to orient, engage and persuade the reader
Text structureThe organisation of the structural components of a persuasive text (introduction, body and conclusion) into an appropriate and effective text structure
IdeasThe selection, relevance and elaboration of ideas for a persuasive argument
Persuasive devicesThe use of a range of persuasive devices to enhance the writer’s position and persuade the reader
VocabularyThe range and precision of contextually appropriate language choices
CohesionThe 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)
ParagraphingThe segmenting of text into paragraphs that assists the reader to follow the line of argument
Sentence structureThe production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences
PunctuationThe use of correct and appropriate punctuation to aid the reading of the text
SpellingThe 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’s spelling, punctuation and grammar abilities 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:

Year 9 NAPLAN Spelling

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:

Year 9 NAPLAN Punctuation

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 include tenses and the correct form of functions (such as identifying comparative adjectives).

Also included are questions which ask you to identify the function of a word in context, and choosing the correct function. Below is an example of the latter:

Year 9 NAPLAN Grammar

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.

Make sure you’re also on top of the significant changes coming to the Years 7-10 Maths NSW Curriculum in 2024!

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 only one 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:

Year 9 NAPLAN Numeracy

The test has a part A (where calculators are allowed), and a part B (where calculators are not allowed).

Wondering what students learn in Year 9 Maths? Check out our guide here!

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 our Master List of NAPLAN Practice Tests here.

Check out our ultimate guide to acing studying for English in Years 9 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!

Essential NAPLAN Guide

Guide to the Year 3 NAPLAN

Guide to the Year 5 NAPLAN

Guide to the Year 7 NAPLAN

If you’re based in NSW, the next major exams your child will be completing are their HSC exams. Learn more about what their senior years of schooling will involve with our HSC guide!

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Lachlan Springfield is incredibly passionate about Millennials. He believes that they’ve been given a pretty bad rap, so he’s decided to work with all sorts of businesses to flip that perspective on its head. He’s a firm believer in studying “smart not hard” and you’ll see that belief pervading in his articles. He’s loved sharing his knowledge about the HSC since graduating in 2016, where he finished with an inclusion in HSC Music Encore. When Lachlan isn’t working, you’ll find him watching his favourite YouTubers, Skyping with friends and jamming out to 60’s psych music.

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