NAPLAN common mistakes
NAPLAN · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the writing task, the student answers the prompt with a bare narrative or opinion and never states or sustains a central idea, so the piece reads as a list of events with no controlling purpose.
Under time pressure, students start writing the first scene or first reason that comes to mind and keep going, because school practice often rewards length and finishing over shaping a clear message. They have not been taught to plan a one-sentence 'so what' before drafting.
What to do instead
Before writing, spend three to four minutes producing a plan: one sentence stating the central idea or lesson, three to five dot points for the sequence, and a note on how it ends. Check every paragraph against that sentence and cut or rewrite anything that does not support it.
The student writes a persuasive piece that lists reasons but never addresses the opposing view or gives evidence, so the argument stays at the level of assertion ('it is obviously better because everyone knows it is').
Students often mistake strong feeling for strong argument and have limited practice in anticipating a reader's objection. They also run out of time, so the counter-argument and evidence, which require the most thought, are the first things dropped.
What to do instead
Use a fixed persuasive frame: position, three reasons each with one concrete example or statistic, one counter-argument with a rebuttal, then a conclusion that restates the position. Practise the counter-argument sentence pattern ('Some people argue that..., however...') until it is automatic.
The student's sentences are all the same length and structure, joined mainly by 'and' and 'then', with paragraphs that are one long block or one sentence each.
Writers default to the sentence patterns they use in speech, and chaining clauses with 'and' is the easiest way to keep going without deciding where a sentence should end. Paragraphing is often treated as decoration rather than as a way of signalling a new idea.
What to do instead
After drafting, reread aloud and mark every place where the sentence could end. Rewrite at least three sentences to begin with a different structure (a subordinate clause, an adverb, a short sentence for emphasis). Make one paragraph per idea and check that each opens with a topic sentence.
In reading, the student answers from general knowledge or personal opinion rather than from the text, choosing an option that sounds true in real life but is not supported by the passage.
Multiple-choice distractors are deliberately plausible and often echo common beliefs. Students who read the question first and then skim for a matching word can be pulled toward an option that shares vocabulary with the text but contradicts it.
What to do instead
Train a two-step routine: read the question, then locate and underline the exact sentence or sentences that decide the answer, and reject any option that cannot be pointed to in the text. For inference questions, ask 'what in the passage makes this true?' before choosing.
The student confuses literal and inferential questions, retelling what happened in the passage when asked why a character acted as they did or what the writer implies.
Students equate 'understanding' with being able to retell, and inference requires holding two pieces of information together and drawing a conclusion, which is a separate skill. Under time pressure, retelling feels productive and safe.
What to do instead
Practise sorting questions into 'in the text' and 'in my head' before answering. For inference items, write the evidence plus the conclusion in a because-sentence ('She hid the letter because...'), and check that the conclusion goes beyond what is literally stated.
The student misreads the structure of an informational text, missing how headings, captions, diagrams, or the order of sections carry meaning, and answers questions about purpose or organisation incorrectly.
Many students read only the body paragraphs and skip titles, subheadings, and visual elements, treating them as decoration. Questions about text structure and author purpose are also less familiar than factual retrieval questions.
What to do instead
Before reading the body, scan and note the title, headings, and any captions in order, and summarise each section in three words. Practise purpose questions by asking 'what job does this part do for the reader?' and matching to options such as to explain, to persuade, to entertain, or to instruct.
In spelling, the student writes homophones and near-homophones incorrectly (their/there/they're, practice/practise, bought/brought, quiet/quite) even when the meaning is clear in their head.
Spelling is often learned as sound-to-letter mapping, so words that sound identical or similar are stored as one item. Proofreading for meaning is rarely practised, so the error survives to the final draft.
What to do instead
Keep a personal list of confused pairs and drill them in sentences rather than in isolation, deciding the correct form by meaning. In the final check, read the piece backwards sentence by sentence, which forces attention to each word rather than to the flow of meaning.
The student punctuates compound and complex sentences incorrectly: comma splices ('We ran to the bus, it was late'), missing commas after introductory clauses, and missing or misplaced apostrophes in plurals and possessives.
Speech does not mark sentence boundaries, so writers punctuate by pause rather than by grammar. Apostrophe rules are also applied by habit, with an 's' added whenever a word looks plural.
What to do instead
Learn three sentence-boundary tests: can each side stand alone, is there a conjunction, and is there a relative pronoun? Apply the apostrophe test aloud: is it one owner or many, and is the next word a noun owned by it? Rewrite ten incorrect sentences each week using these tests.
In numeracy, the student computes correctly but answers a different question from the one asked, for example giving the number of items rather than the total cost, or forgetting to convert units before calculating.
Word problems require holding the goal in mind while performing several operations, and the final step is often the least practised. Units are skipped because the numbers feel familiar.
What to do instead
Before calculating, write down the quantity requested with its unit, and after calculating, restate the answer as a sentence ('The total cost is ... dollars'). Convert all measurements to one unit at the start and write the unit beside every number in the working.
The student works only with whole numbers and gives up or guesses on questions involving fractions, decimals, percentages, or ratio, and does not estimate to check whether an answer is reasonable.
Fraction and decimal concepts are often memorised as procedures without a sense of size, so students cannot judge whether an answer is plausible. Estimation is rarely taught as a checking tool, so absurd answers pass unnoticed.
What to do instead
Build a size sense by placing fractions, decimals, and percentages on the same number line and converting between them daily. Before answering, estimate the result to one significant figure, then compare the calculated answer with the estimate and investigate any large gap.