Preparing for the OC test, year by year

Years 2 and 3: build the ground

• Reading: something every day, and a mix of it — stories, poems and articles that explain something. Ask why a character did what they did, and what a paragraph is for. The reading paper asks exactly that, across different kinds of text.
• Number: times tables to instant recall, place value, fractions of a shape and of a number, money, time and measuring. The maths paper allows no calculator, so speed with number frees time for the thinking.
• Thinking: patterns, codes, puzzles about who sits where, and the habit of asking "how do you know?" Chess, Sudoku and logic puzzles all count.
• Little and often beats long sessions. Fifteen or twenty minutes on most days does more than two hours on a Sunday.

Every topic of each year is listed on its own page: Year 2, Year 3.

Year 4, Term 1: apply, then meet the papers

• Apply before the February close. The department accepts no late applications.
• Sit the department's online practice test together, without the clock, and look at the kinds of question it asks.
• Notice which paper is hardest for your child, and give that one most of the time from here to May.

The format, dates and how places are offered are in the OC test explained. Every Year 4 topic is on the Year 4 page.

Each paper, and how to practise it

• Reading — 14 questions, 33 answers, 40 minutes. Practise pointing to the line that proves an answer. In a multiple-choice reading question every wrong option is wrong for a reason in the text; ask your child to find it.
• Mathematical reasoning — 35 questions, 40 minutes, five options each. Many are word problems with more than one step. Estimate first and cross out the options that cannot be right; then check an answer by working backwards.
• Thinking skills — 30 questions, 30 minutes, four options each. Part of it is argument: which statement must be true, which strengthens or weakens a claim, where reasoning goes wrong. The rest is problem solving: patterns, codes, order and position, shapes turned and folded. Drawing a quick table or diagram settles most of these.

The last weeks before May

• Practise whole papers at their real length, on a screen where you can: the test is sat on a computer.
• Pace it: about a minute a question in maths and thinking skills. Teach your child to leave a question that is taking too long and come back to it.
• Work on paper beside the screen. On the day there are two A4 sheets for working out, and no calculator.
• Keep the week before light: sleep, routine and a short practice or two, not a cram.

What not to overdo

• Paper after paper. One missed question understood is worth more than ten papers sat and marked.
• The stakes. There are about 1,840 Year 5 places across NSW, so many strong children miss out. Keep the test one part of the year, not the whole of it.

Where Clevariz fits

Clevariz is practice for Years 2 to 4, the years leading up to the test: maths, reading and English, and thinking skills, each skill asked until it sticks, in multiple choice as on the test, and many Year 4 questions worked step by step after a miss. Parents see progress topic by topic. Like any practice it cannot promise a place, and it has no connection with the department.