Transcript Literacy Test Prep Guide

Thomas A. Stewart
Literacy Test
(OSSLT)
Prep Guide
2013
The Literacy Test:
How it’s marked and why
this matters.
To help you navigate
the guide, the TAS
Logo is a link to the
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.
Introduction
This guide is intended to be a resource for students,
teachers and parents.
It has several sections covering what to expect, how these
questions are marked, examples of good and bad answers
with explanations for why.
Throughout the guide there are suggestions, tips and hints.
You can jump from section to section or go through the
guide in order.
We recommend visiting this guide more than once.
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Table of Contents
How the OSSLT is marked
What’s a Pass?
What’s in the OSSLT?
Question Breakdown
Reading Questions
Writing Questions
Total weighting for all questions
Reading Breakdown
Writing Breakdown
OSSLT -speak
Other Guides
OSSLT-speak
Decoding the OSSLT:
The OSSLT has its own special terminology. It’s important to know what their terms
mean.
A “selection” is the thing they have you read…it might be part of a book,
a story from a magazine, something from a website, but basically it’s the
thing you need to base your answers on.
Prompt:
The “prompt” is basically the question. For a Series of Paragraphs
Expressing an Opinion the “prompt” will be the topic they want you to
write about.
Response: Your “response” is your answer; what you write about the “selection” in
answer to the “prompt.”
Scoring:
“Scoring” is the word they use for marking or grading. Your score on
each question is called a Code. So if you get 30 they call it a Code 30.
Conventions: Spelling, grammar, sentence structure and punctuation.
Selection:
How the OSSLT is Marked
This guide will explain how the Grade 10 literacy test (OSSLT) is
marked and how this affects the way students should approach it.
WHAT’S A PASS?
Students and parents need to realize the how much the test is out of
and what the exact number to pass is changes every year. So we
can’t say to you “you need 300 out of 426 and you will pass.”
What we do know is the “Provincial Standard” is Level 3. Meaning if
you get above 70% you should be fine.
WHAT’S IN THE OSSLT?
The test contains two different types of questions: Reading and
Writing.
In OSSLT-speak questions are called “tasks.”
Reading Tasks (questions) will account for a little more than half the
final mark – 53/54%.
Writing Tasks (questions) account to the rest: 46/47%
While there are two booklets they are not totally split into “Reading
booklet” and “Writing Booklet.” Each half of the OSSLT will
include both types of question.
For a detailed breakdown on how each question
is put together and how they are marked
check the individual guides in this series.
Reading/Writing tasks
OSSLT Question Weighting
Reading “tasks.”
53/54%
Reading
Writing
Writing “tasks.”
47/46%
READING “TASKS”
The test contains 5 different Reading Tasks.
Tasks. Students
Students are
are
asked to read and then respond to:
1 – An information paragraph. – Which will a story about a place,
person or event.
2 – A news story
2 – A news story – which might come from a newspaper, magazine or
3 – webpage.
A dialogue
34 –– A
– a conversation between 2 or more people.
A dialogue
real-life narrative
45 –– A
– someone telling a story about something
A real-life
graphic narrative
text
that happened to them
5 – A graphic text – will include diagrams, photographs, drawings,
sketches, patterns, timetables, maps, charts or tables
READING “TASKS”
Each type of Reading “task” will ask you to answer in a
slightly different way; using a combination of multiple
choice and short answer questions :
1 – An information paragraph. – 6 Multiple Choice Questions and 1
Short Answer question (6 lines)
2 – A news story
2 – A news story – 5 Multiple Choice Questions and 1 Short Answer
(6 lines)
3 – question
A dialogue
34 –– A
– 5 Multiple Choice Questions and 2 Short Answer
A dialogue
real-life narrative
questions (6 lines each )
5 – A graphic text
4 – A real-life narrative – 9 Multiple Choice Questions
5 – A graphic text – 6 Multiple Choice Questions
Here is a breakdown of Reading
“Tasks”
Real-life
Graphic Text
Approx 9% of Total
Narrative
Approx 11% of
Total
Information
Paragraph
Approx 11% of
Total
Information Paragraph
New s story
Dialogue
Real-life narrative
Graphic Text
Dialogue
Approx 11% of
Total
News Story
Approx 10% of
Total
WRITING “TASKS”
The test contains 4 different Writing Tasks. Students are
asked to write:
1 – A short answer. – They give you a question (prompt) and you
have 6 lines to respond.
22 –– A
A News
News Report
Report – This is one of the two Long Writing “Tasks.”
You get a page - about 25 lines - to answer.
3 – A Series of Paragraphs
3 – A Series of Paragraphs – This is the other Long Writing “Task.”
get aChoice
2 pagesWriting
- about Questions
50 lines - to answer.
4 – You
Multiple
4 – Multiple Choice Writing Questions – about spelling, grammar,
punctuation, “spot the one correct sentence in these four” etc.
WRITING “TASKS”
The test contains 4 different Writing Tasks. Students are
asked to write:
1 – A short answer. – There will be two of these. They are marked out
of 50. 30 for Topic Development and 20 for Conventions
22 –– A
A News
News Report
Report – There will be one of these. It is marked out of
100. 60 for Topic Development and 40 for Conventions
3 – A Series of Paragraphs
3 – A Series of Paragraphs – There will be one of these. It is marked
out of 100. 60 for Topic Development and 40 for Conventions
4 – Multiple Choice Writing Questions
4 – Multiple Choice Writing Questions – There will be 8-10 of these.
Usually in 2 sets.
Here is a breakdown on Writing
“Tasks”
Notice that
the two
News Report
Long writing tasks
make up almost
25% of the whole
test.
Approx 12% of
Total
Series of
Paragraphs
Approx 12% of
Total
Short Responses to tw o prompts
Series of Paragraphs
New s Report
Multiple Choice questions about w riting
Multiple Choice
(8 to 10 Questions)
Approx 10% of Total
Short Answers
(2 questions)
Approx 12% of
Total
OVERVIEW
If we look at the percentages we see that no one question is
the “key” to passing the test.
The two Long Writing “tasks” make up about one quarter of
the test, so you can’t afford to blow either of them off.
The six (4 reading and 2 writing) short answer “tasks”
account for about 27% of the test and are reasonably straight
forward.
The 40 or so Multiple Choice questions account for the rest
of, pretty much half, the test and you should absolutely try to
do as well as you can on them.
Total weight for each type of Question:
Writing Short Answer
(2 Questions)
Approx 12% of Total
Multiple Choice
(About 40 Questions)
Approx 48% of Total
25%
48%
Multiple Choice
Short Answ er Open Responce
Short Writing
Long Writing
12%
15%
Writing Long Answer
(2 Questions)
Approx 25% of Total
Reading Short Answer
(4 Questions)
Approx 15% of Total
OVERVIEW
So, the “key” to passing the OSSLT is to make sure you make
an honest effort at every question.
The short writing questions give you 6 lines…use them all.
The News Report gives you 25 lines…use them all.
The Series of Paragraphs gives you 50 lines…make sure you
write at least 5 paragraphs with at least 4 sentences in each
paragraph. Even if you use phrases like “My first point is…”
or “In this paragraph I will argue that…”
Answer every Multiple Choice question.
OVERVIEW
Above all. READ the QUESTIONS!
Make sure you are answering what they are asking.
The surest way to get 0 is to given them a “response” which
does not answer the question they asked.
On the short answers – restate the question in your answer.
On the News Report pick out the important words in the
headline and match them to the photo before you start writing.
On the Reading Multiple Choice, refer back to the text and
find the key words in the question.
Thomas A Stewart
OSSLT Guide
TAS OSSLT Guides:
How the test is marked and why this matters
Reading Questions: Open Response
Reading Questions: Multiple Choice
Writing Questions: Series of Paragraphs
Writing Questions: Open Response Short Writing
Writing Questions: News Report
How to prepare for the OSSLT
Overview of the OSSLT