NSW Check-in Assessment cheat sheet

Text types: narrative tells a story with characters and plot; informative explains facts; persuasive argues a position with reasons and evidence.

Main idea is the central point a text makes; it is often stated in the opening or closing sentence, while supporting details give evidence for it.

Inference means drawing a conclusion from clues in the text plus background knowledge; the answer is implied, not stated word for word.

Fact can be checked or proven; opinion expresses a judgment or feeling and often uses evaluative words such as best, worst, should, or beautiful.

Author's purpose is usually to inform, persuade, entertain, or instruct; the verb choice and text structure signal which one applies.

Figurative language: a simile compares using like or as; a metaphor states one thing is another; personification gives human traits to non-human things.

Cohesion devices include pronouns referring back to nouns, conjunctions showing cause or contrast, and repeated key words linking sentences.

Punctuation rules: apostrophe before s for singular possession, after s for plural possession; a colon introduces a list or explanation; commas separate items in a series.

Persuasive techniques include emotive language, rhetorical questions, statistics, expert opinion, and repetition; each aims to sway the reader's response.

Order of operations: evaluate brackets first, then indices, then multiplication and division left to right, then addition and subtraction left to right.

Fractions: to add or subtract, use a common denominator; to multiply, multiply numerators and denominators; to divide, multiply by the reciprocal.

Percentage of an amount equals the percentage divided by 100, multiplied by the amount; percentage change equals change divided by original, times 100.

Ratio a:b shares a total by dividing it into a+b parts, then multiplying the part value by each ratio term.

Area formulas: rectangle length times width; triangle half base times height; circle pi times radius squared. Perimeter is the distance around a shape.

Volume of a rectangular prism is length times width times height; volume of a cylinder is pi times radius squared times height.

Mean equals the sum of values divided by the number of values; median is the middle value when ordered; mode is the most frequent value.

Probability of an event equals favourable outcomes divided by total equally likely outcomes, expressed as a fraction, decimal, or percentage between 0 and 1.

Algebra: solve linear equations by performing the same operation on both sides; substitute values into expressions by replacing variables with numbers.