How to pass the National Literacy Test

1. How to pass the National Literacy Test

3. How to pass it? you will not pass regardless of what you do if your literacy level is not sufficient you need to be reading a lot – an hour or two every day studying how a test is designed and what it tests, and by practising, you can improve your score by anything up to 20%.

4. Structure There are 40 questions and 1h to do the test. No dictionary allowed. You will have 8 texts with 5 questions for each text. You should allow 7-8 minutes per each text. Some texts might be longer than others

5. Types of texts Letters Memos Articles Adverts Questionnaires Reports Brochures Reviews Leaflets Competition entries Draft document

6. Task 1 Look at the eight texts in the practice test. The type of text has been replaced with a line ( ___________) in the introduction and questions. Decide which type of text each one is.

15. How to Read Scanning – Skimming – Reading in detail – Spelling Paragraphing Punctuation Grammar Vocabulary

16. Task 2 Look at questions 1 – 10 and decide which type of question it is. e.g. Q1 – scanning. You need to read the question noticing the word ‘first’ look at the sub-headings and spot the phrase ‘Who first wore . . .’, then read this paragraph in detail as it is paraphrasing the question (i.e. saying the same thing in different words).

19. Task 3 Look at question 12 on the next slide. A key phrase has been replaced with ‘XXXXXXXXXXX’ in the question and text. Can you answer the question? What do you think the phrase is?

21. Reading for detail Some questions involve looking for words or symbols in the text and don’t involve understanding words at all! Question 37 on page 17 is like this. You need to look at the customer’s answers to the final 3 questions in the questionnaire and eliminate answers.

22. E.g. it can’t be option A because it says ‘late forties’ and he has underlined ‘35-48’, and it says ‘camera’ and he has underlined ‘video camera’. Look at the other options and decide why they are correct or incorrect.

24. Grammar These questions are very quick and easy to answer if you know the grammar!

26. Paragraphs A paragraph should explain one main point.

29. Spelling and Punctuation Don’t spend a long time trying to work out the correct spelling of a word – if you know it answer it, if you don’t guess!

31. General Approach Look at the text and identify type – is it an article, advert, letter etc.? Identify types of questions—is it spelling, punctuation, text structure etc.? Look at the text and quickly find the part of the text which contains the answer and try to answer it. Guess if you don’t know the answer. You never need to start at the beginning of a text and read through it, understanding every word. If you do this, you will never finish in time. Look through and answer questions you find easy first. Do the easy texts first and leave the difficult ones for later. Be strict, and don’t spend more than 10 minutes on any text.