Exam Success' Ultimate Test Preparation Guide for Scholarship (Year 7 Entry) Exams Offered by Edutest®

A 50% scholarship can save parents $14,748 each year** - Will your child get into a top school & get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

In this guide, you’ll find out what an Edutest exam format looks like (number of questions, time, areas tested), what schools generally use Edutest to set their exam, how hard a scholarship exam is and what is expected. As a bonus, an exam expert will show you how to best do test preparation for your child for this competitive exam.

Edutest is a trade mark of EduTest Pty Ltd. Any products available for sale on this website are not approved by EduTest Pty Ltd.


What is an Edutest scholarship exam, how hard is the test and should your child prepare?

If you have applied for your child to sit a scholarship or are planning to so, you may be advised that it will be an Edutest scholarship exam. Edutest provides scholarship tests to around 180 schools across Australia (Sydney Morning Herald, 2018). There are significant financial rewards as parents can save $14,748 each year from a 50% fee remission scholarship to over $30,000 with a 100% scholarship each year.

However, one of the major hurdles in getting a scholarship is the dreaded private school scholarship exam.

So what is an Edutest scholarship test and more importantly, how do you prepare your child for it?

Edutest is one of the 3 major test setters in Australia along with ACER and Academic Assessment Services (aka AAS and formerly known as Robert Allwell & Associates).

An Edutest scholarship test for Year 7 entry generally has 5 parts being verbal reasoning (30 minutes), numerical reasoning (30 minutes), reading comprehension (30 minutes), mathematics (30 minutes) and written expression (15 minutes). Each of these test parts will be explained in more detail below (time, format, what it tests exactly).

How hard is an Edutest scholarship exam?

Like most scholarship exams, Edutest scholarship exams are difficult because they test things that your child DOESN'T learn at school. Reasoning and problem solving feature heavily for verbal and numerical reasoning.

However, anecdotal evidence from our past students who have done Edutest, ACER and Academic Assessment Services exams during the February - March testing period have found Edutest to be the 'easier' or more 'straightforward' of the exams. Especially for mathematics where they have year-level appropriate mathematics questions.

However, this doesn't mean it is an easy test as there is the problem of the very short time limit – usually 60 seconds to complete a multiple-choice question and 15 minutes to write a full-length essay.

As a guide, your child should be performing 1-2 grades above their current grade in both Maths and English. This means an A to A+ in order to be considered baseline competitive as candidates who sit the exam are most likely to be at that level already.

Edutest scholarship exams are even harder in selection compared to their exams for selective schools (Edutest also produce the Victorian Selective Schools Test that is held in June each year). This is because a scholarship may provide 1-3 spots a year while selective schools often have 225 spots or more.

Should you prepare? Even though Edutest representatives say that it doesn't make a difference?

Our short answer is "Yes". Not because we work in test preparation but because it makes sense to prepare. It is an exam afterall.

Fiona Sherry, the Edutest operations manager says that “the tests aren’t curriculum based” but also agrees that "a practice test may be useful" (Sydney Morning Herald, 2018).

We believe the reason why exam companies discourage preparation is because they want their exam to select students fairly, however, in the real world, people do prepare and students who do prepare can get an advantage. I have personally seen instances where naturally gifted students missed out to someone who was prepared because they had poor exam technique.

Another reason why we believe companies discourage preparation is because it isn't good practice to be seen encouraging students to be competitive and to engage in coaching that stresses students out.

However, if parents take this advice and their child doesn't prepare at all, they're at a disadvantage because they're competing with students who did prepare.

The thing with preparation is that it can be done in a sensible way - preparing early and making it part of a regular habit is a way of preparation that doesn't cause unnecessary stress and can be effective.

It would be unfair to put your child into the Edutest exam without preparation. It is a time-driven exam and totally different from what they get at school.

Get them help so they go into the test knowing what to do and how to do their best.



What’s in an Edutest scholarship Year 7 exam – test format, number of questions and time limit?

An Edutest year 7 scholarship exam has 5 parts - 4 parts are multiple-choice questions and 1 part is an essay. This is the general structure although schools can customise for their own needs.

Additionally, the Edutest test format has 2 ability tests (these are about thinking and problem solving), while their test for reading comprehension, mathematics and written expression are achievement based (i.e. more based around what you get taught at school). This differs from other exam providers like ACER where mathematics is heavy on the reasoning side rather than what your child learns at school.

The 5 parts along with their description (including time limits and estimated number of questions per test *) are shown below:


Written Expression


Number of questions: 1 writing prompt
What’s the time limit*? 15 minutes
Time per question* ~ 15 minutes

In this part, your child needs to write a written piece. But not any style they want, they need to answer the question. The question may request that they write a creative, descriptive, narrative, persuasive, expository or informative piece. If the questions requests this, they must write the correct style or risk losing marks. We recommend you have a set structure going into the exam so that you can do your piece quickly and in the right layout - Exam Success' writing club has set layouts that have been proven to work in a 20 minute time limit.

Just because your child can write sentences with perfect spelling and grammar, doesn’t mean they’ll get a good mark. They’re just the basics. Scholarship selection requires higher skills – these are:

  • Relevant to the topic – your child can’t write anything they want, they need to come up with a piece that is directly related to the stimulus/question they’re given. This could be an image, a statement or both. Students that don’t do this risk getting a nil mark. It’s important your child relates to the prompt because in the past, students have come into the exam with rehearsed essays. We do not recommend you memorise essays beforehand. However, we highly recommend you practice a lot and have ‘backup’ sentences that you can use.
  • Accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar, proper sentence structure and paragraphing – your child should write clear sentences that are in order and can be easily understood. So not to write: “Yesterday, I will eat dinner”, but write: “Yesterday, I ate dinner”. Also, one of the biggest misconceptions that students and parents (and teachers) have is that to score well in this area, you have to use a lot of ‘big words’. Using a ‘big word’ incorrectly and in the wrong context will lose your child marks. Also, if you don’t know how to spell the word, it will also likely lose you marks. Remember, words need to be selected carefully to ‘enhance’ your piece. Poorly chosen words will lead to loss of marks. For example, “A plethora of reasons why” is better written as the simpler “A number of reasons why…”

Most importantly, if your child's piece is unique and not like the others, it will stand out. But again, these need to be written well and planned carefully to fit within the 15 minutes you are provided.

Reading Comprehension


Number of questions: 45 multiple-choice questions (estimated)
What’s the time limit*? 30 minutes
Time per question* ~ 40 seconds

Your child will be presented with a range of texts - this includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, cartoons, and more. They'll need to read and interpret meaning from the text. This means they need a structured thinking process to get through this section quickly. Unlike the ACER and Academic Assessment Services test, the Edutest reading comprehension does ask students to correct, complete and punctuate sentences. Many students find this easier to do (than the interpretation part) and there are quick marks to be gained in this area.

Mathematics


Number of questions: 40 multiple-choice questions (estimated)
What’s the time limit*? 30 minutes
Time per question* ~ 45 seconds

According to the Edutest website, the mathematics test "measures year-level appropriate mathematical knowledge, including...., measurement, algebra, space and data."

While some questions may be straightforward, there are likely to be more complicated questions. An example question could be:

A game show contestant must jump blindfolded into a pool filled with a thousand balloons that are coloured red, green or white. The contestant must select a white balloon to win. The ratio of red to green to white balloons is 3:7:10. What is the chance that the game show contestant will select a white balloon?

a) 10
b) 1
c) 0.5
d) 1/10

Students learn ratios and probability at school and would have already learnt how to add and multiply. These are all needed to answer the above question. But knowing these things individually doesn’t ensure that a student will know how to use them in combination to answer the question correctly or go about it in the most time-efficient way. To answer this question correctly, students need to figure out:

  • That the word “chance” means probability. This means that the answer must be less than 1 (because the chance of something happening is expressed as less than 100%. 100% is certainty).
  • That the ratio figures added together create a whole. So 3 + 7 + 10 adds up to 20 and when you multiply that by 50, you get 1,000 balloons.
  • Select the part of the ratio that is important – “white balloons” and calculate the probability of selecting a white balloon. So 10 / (3 + 7+ 10)) is one-half and this is 0.5 in decimal format.

The exam questions are likely to require your child to synthesise the information provided and make decisions about what to use, how and when.

Verbal Reasoning


Number of questions: 60 multiple-choice questions
What’s the time limit*? 30 minutes
Time per question* ~ 30 seconds

Verbal reasoning is largely about pattern detection using words and language. The language doesn’t need to be English, sometimes; verbal reasoning questions are about decoding a code written in some alien language. Other possible verbal reasoning questions that could appear in the exam are:
* Odd word out.
* Word that has the closest meaning to another word.
* Adding or removing a letter to make a different word.
* Logical consequence based on a statement.
* If & and statements.
Because of its heavy reliance on words, those with a wider vocabulary range (this means knowing how the word is spelled and what it means) may find verbal reasoning easier compared to those with a limited vocabulary range.

Numerical reasoning


Number of questions: 50 multiple-choice questions
What’s the time limit*? 30 minutes
Time per question* ~ 36 seconds

Numerical reasoning is about solving problems that have to do with numbers. Your child may be asked to detect the pattern in a sequence of numbers, select a number that should go in a sequence and more. Usually, there are also worded problems like “If a person is 2 times another person’s age now, how old will they be in 10 years time”. There are strategies your child can learn to help them answer these types of questions quickly and accurately.

﹡ The number of questions and time limit have been estimated from the Edutest website and other publicly available information. Please note that the authoritative body can change the number of questions and time limits from year to year so please refer to their websites for the most up to date information. Time per question is calculated by taking the time limit divided by number of questions.

﹡﹡ Calculated as the identified cost of private school tuition fees of $36,870 per year for inner suburb of capital city multiplied by 50%.

As you'll see, the scholarship test revolves heavily around thinking skills rather than curriculum – this means you’ll need test preparation that teaches logical reasoning. Logical reasoning is unfamiliar to many parents but it can be taught and is a study area under ‘logic’ a branch of study under philosophy. Our courses and test questions are developed by one of our exam experts who majored in philosophy and studied logic reasoning from a logic professor at the renowned University of Melbourne.

Your child needs support and expert programs designed around building skills in reasoning that they don’t teach you at school. These are the skills that will help your child answer those hard questions they get the high marks for. Most children can answer the easier questions but it’s the harder questions that help your child get selected for a scholarship.



How Do You Prepare Your Kid For the Edutest Scholarship Test?

The savings for a scholarship can be more than $44,244 over 6 years from Grade 7 – 12, the stakes are high because of the financial reward and so is the competition. Many children commonly put in 168+ hours of preparation 6 months ahead of test date.

Your child doesn't need to do years and years of preparation to be competitive. They just need to do targeted and 'smart' test preparation. That's test preparation that's effective.

So how can your child prepare?

The first step is to do sample question papers and to figure out what areas your child needs to work on.

Edutest does produce a range of practice questions here that can be purchased on the Edutest website.

However, according to their website, the practice tests that Edutest provides are:

  • not designed to be too difficult for students to complete. Most students get between 75 to 100% of practice test questions correct.
  • not designed to be used as a coaching tool.
  • not intended to duplicate the scholarship material.

This means that in order to properly prepare for your test, you need practice questions that are designed at a scholarship level (hard questions) + coaching. Exam Success provides both through our teaching test bank - under test papers.

Practicing on questions that are difficult like the scholarship exam and knowing how to answer the question and similar questions is the key to being fully prepared. Having a strategy and process on how to answer questions is crucial for success.

We have found that there are a limited number of ways you can test reasoning and have created our own set of questions with detailed solutions that explain, step-by-step how your child can get the answer correct.

These have been used by students to prepare for an Edutest exam and successfully gain a scholarship.

You can sign up for the teaching test bank (under test papers) here.

When we do private tuition, the process we use to help students gain a scholarship involves just 5 steps!

For Edutest verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, reading and mathematics:

  1. Do a practice test disregarding the time limit. Focus on getting the question right and find out what your score is in the end.
  2. For any question you didn’t get correct, figure out what should be the correct answer (and check it with your answer key).
  3. For those same questions, come up with strategies so that when you’re faced with a similar question next time, you’ll be able to answer it. Hone your strategy over time so that you reduce the number of steps it takes to get to the answer (and so that you can answer the question more quickly).
  4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 until you get a score of 95-100%. Each time you repeat it, if done properly, your child should be seeing a higher score in their practice test.
  5. Then do practice tests within the time limit. What you’ll find is that working in a time limit is easier, once you have a process to answering various questions correctly.

While they look like 5 easy steps, going through each step does time a long time if done properly and coming up with strategies takes time. The strategy that has the least step is the quickest way there but it requires clear thought and understanding around logical links. You can develop these strategies yourself, or you can do our courses where these strategies are provided.

Written Expression is a bit trickier as there are so many ways where your writing can lose marks (we’ve identified 52!).

Based on our experience helping students get scholarships, we’ve found that students improve dramatically and quickly through targeted feedback. Writing improves quickly when you have experts providing feedback. Your child shouldn’t have to sit in class and learn grammar rules, but rather, they should:

  1. Write their essay
  2. Get customized feedback.
  3. Repeat steps 1-2 again. Using the feedback, overtime, students see an improvement in their essays. They stop making the same mistakes and their writing is better.

A scholarship is much sought after – it provides parents and children with access to the most prestigious and top schools at a reduced price (savings usually $40,000 over 6 years). It is a lifetime opportunity that provides your child with endless benefits.



Here's test preparation designed for your child's success


Here are schools that use Edutest to prepare their exams. Please note that this is a guide - for the most up to date information, we recommend that you contact the school directly to confirm the provider of your scholarship exam.




Edutest Scholarship Yr 7 - Teaching Test Bank

Start practicing for your test and get 600 multiple-choice questions similar to the Edutest Scholarship Yr 7 papers and this is split up into:

  • Reading comprehension - 150 sample test questions.
  • Mathematics - 150 sample test questions.
  • Verbal reasoning - 150 sample test questions.
  • Numerical reasoning - 150 sample test questions.

The teaching test bank combines 600 online practice questions (option to use timed or untimed practice mode) with a 'how-to' video to show your child how to answer the question in 5 steps or less for each question.

This test bank is available now.

Start your practice now, to get well prepared for the upcoming scholarship season!

Want a free trial to see if Teaching Test Bank is right for you? Click here to try out Teaching Test Bank - for free!

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Once your subscription expires, you can choose to extend it any time for only $52.80 for 31 days.

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Frequently Asked Questions

See answers to frequently asked questions by parents:

How does the extension work for courses? I need more than 6 months.

It's great that you're planning ahead. Once you purchase, access is provided for 6 months from the date of purchase. An extension is $19 per month for an individual course or $39 to have your whole originally purchased course package renewed per month. To get extension access, just extend on the website where you access your course.

How do we get more practice worksheets to work on? The videos are helpful but we need more practice material to practice under time constrraints [sic].

As a minimum, per course there are 10 questions x 10 checkpoints = 100 questions (some courses/checkpoints have more). The final checkpoints (Checkpoint 11 / 12) is the practice exam which has for the Year 7 exams, approximately 30-45 questions depending on the course and for Year 9, this is 50-65 questions depending on the course. The course should provide all the practice questions you require in order to prepare effectively for the exam.

Parents don't often realise that too many practice questions is not a good thing because students are more likely to skim over the question and 'do it' and opposed to understanding the logic more deeply. Understanding the logic leads to Exam Success!

I've seen this problem happen a lot where parents buy all this practice material and become confused and stressed not knowing where to start! Focus on quality of practice questions over quantity and your child will be less stressed, more focused and better prepared for the exam. It's about studying smarter not harder!

If I wish to purchase whole package, how much time (approx.) should it take for my 10yr old to complete all the units?

If you have the time for example, 6 months to spare, I'd recommend 3.5 hours each weekend. Each course has 12 checkpoints and there are 7 courses altogether (84 checkpoints - approximately 84+ hours of exam preparation. If you have 3 months to the time of the exam, I'd recommend doing a checkpoint per day (if doing the full package of 7 courses). Some students say it takes on average 37 hours to complete one course (for 7 courses that would be 210 hours) so potentially, your child could do the course full time during the summer holiday period and beyond.

If we complete certain units but want to go back to previous units, can we do that? How long are the videos available to us? Can they be downloaded?

Yes - that's what we wanted as students often have to reinforce their knowledge. You can revisit the unit whenever you like. It's like having the ultimate text book in video format and you can flip ahead or back whenever you need. Access is granted for a period of six months. If you need an extension it is $19 per month for an individual course or $39 per month to have your whole package extended per month.

No the videos cannot be downloaded, everything is available to access on the site.

Is there a discount if we want to buy more than 2 packages? If I plan to buy all packages, it comes up to almost $700/- which is quite pricey

There are packages available that provides savings.

Individual packages are there as sometimes, students may only need to polish up on one area and this provides them with that polishing up.

We price our products based on the work involved to prepare them and we put in alot of effort as shown by our results and reviews from students and parents. When you think about it, we are value for money compared to other providers as:

Hendersons charge around $180 - $270 for a 1-day workshop on 1 subject only. Ours is $150 and students have access for six months AND they can revisit whenever they need.

James An's selective trial test course cost around $1090 for four subjects over a 10-week term (Herald Sun 2013). Exam Success' full package is $449 which includes +3 more subject but also $641 LESS expensive than James An.

According to a Sydney Morning Herald article, "Mr Mysore said he had spent about $3000 to help prepare his son, who went to coaching for four hours a week, for the selective exam." (Herald Sun 2013). Exam Success' course is less than 1/3 of the cost and doing the full package (7 courses) over 6 months would take around 3.5 hours per week.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the teacher. I've heard stories where students have a good teacher at a tuition school and when they don't they don't really take much in.

At Exam Success, we make sure that what your child is watching is effective so that they get the best learning possible and preparation for their exam.

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