This article provides information on how to choose and assign suitable PAT Vocabulary Skills test levels to your students. The following topics are covered:
- Importance of choosing the right test
- Previewing the tests
- Recommended test levels
- Supporting documents
Importance of choosing the right test
For an assessment to produce valuable information about students’ abilities, it needs to be appropriately targeted to uncover what students can do and understand, as well as what they cannot yet do and understand.
So, when a student responds correctly to approximately 50% of questions, the test is well targeted and provides the maximum information about the skills a student is demonstrating, and those they are still developing.
Previewing the tests
To make decisions about which test is most appropriate for a particular student or group of students, it is essential that you preview the test content:
- Click Students
- Click Tests
- Click Preview
The difficulty of a test and your knowledge of each student should be taken into consideration when selecting an appropriate test form. Curriculum appropriateness and the context of the classroom also need to be taken into account when making this decision.
There is often a wide range of ability within the classroom, so it is not necessary to provide all students in a class with the same test. Instead, the focus should always be on each student’s ability at the time of the assessment, not where they are expected to be.
Students may be given easier or harder tests if they have limited or extensive vocabularies for their year level. For all tests, students require sufficient reading skill to independently read the questions. Because reading and vocabulary skills are closely associated domains, other test data from reading comprehension assessments such as PAT Reading can be used as evidence to guide the assignment of tests of the appropriate level.
Recommended test levels
| Test level | Generally suitable for | Indicative content and skills assessed |
No. of questions | Time allowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test 1 | Lower primary (year 2) |
Recognise and sort familiar and common vocabulary in familiar and everyday contexts |
27 | 35 minutes |
| Test 2 | Middle primary (year 3, year 4) |
Apply knowledge of common words and a few familiar prefixes and infer the meaning of some uncommon words in everyday contexts |
30 | 40 minutes |
| Test 3 | Upper primary (year 5, year 6) |
Apply, categorise and infer the meaning of common and uncommon words and familiar prefixes in a range of contexts | 33 | |
| Test 4 | Lower secondary (year 7, year 8) |
Apply knowledge of many uncommon and some rare words and recognise some Latin and Greek roots |
35 | 45 minutes |
| Test 5 | Middle secondary (year 9, year 10) |
Recognise, differentiate between, infer the meaning of, categorise and order many rare words including words with Latin and Greek roots |
38 |