NAPLAN Reading cheat sheet

Persuasive structure: introduction stating a position, three or more body paragraphs each with one reason plus evidence, then a conclusion restating the position.

Narrative structure: orientation (who, where, when), complication, rising action, climax, resolution; a story missing a complication usually scores low on structure.

Paragraph rule: one controlling idea per paragraph; the topic sentence appears first and the remaining sentences explain, illustrate, or qualify it.

Cohesion devices: pronouns referring back to earlier nouns, and connectives such as however, therefore, in contrast, and as a result, signal relationships between ideas.

Sentence variety: a short sentence after two long ones adds emphasis; a piece of writing made only of simple sentences reads as controlled but limited.

Audience and purpose decide register: a letter to a principal uses formal address and no contractions, while a diary entry may use first person and colloquial phrasing.

Show, do not tell: replace an adjective such as angry with observable action, for example clenched fists and a raised voice.

Editing pass order: check that the piece answers the prompt, then paragraph order, then sentence boundaries, then spelling and punctuation.

Literal questions are answered by words stated in the text; inferential questions require combining two or more stated details with general knowledge.

Main idea sits at the whole-text level; a detail question is answered by one sentence, so a true statement can still be the wrong answer to a main-idea question.

Text types and their cues: narrative has characters and a plot, recount is chronological, procedure uses numbered or imperative steps, and exposition argues a position.

Author purpose is usually one of persuade, inform, entertain, or instruct; the verb in the question names the purpose being tested.

Vocabulary in context: substitute each option into the sentence and keep only the one that preserves the surrounding meaning and grammar.

Sequence questions are solved by locating time markers (first, after, meanwhile, finally) rather than by the order in which events are described.

Fact versus opinion: a fact can be checked by evidence; opinion markers include should, best, believe, and the most beautiful.

Figures such as tables and diagrams are read for labels, units, and captions; the answer often depends on a unit stated only in the caption.

Sentence boundary rule: a sentence needs a subject and a finite verb; two independent clauses joined by only a comma form a comma splice.

Its is possessive, it's means it is; their is possessive, there is place, they're means they are.

Apostrophe placement: singular owner takes 's (the dog's bowl), plural owners ending in s take s' (the dogs' bowls).

Subject-verb agreement ignores interrupting phrases: the box of old letters was found, because the head noun is box.

Commas separate items in a list, mark introductory phrases, and enclose non-essential information; they never join two complete sentences.

Direct speech punctuation: quotation marks enclose the spoken words, and the comma or question mark sits inside the closing quotation mark.

Homophones to check by meaning: practice (noun) versus practise (verb) in British spelling, and affect (verb) versus effect (noun).

Adverb versus adjective: an adverb modifies a verb or adjective (she ran quickly), an adjective modifies a noun (a quick run).

Place value: each position to the left is ten times the value of the position to its right, so 4 in 3,472 is worth 400.

Fraction, decimal, percentage equivalence: 1/2 = 0.5 = 50%, 1/4 = 0.25 = 25%, 1/5 = 0.2 = 20%, 1/8 = 0.125 = 12.5%.

Percentage of a quantity: convert to a decimal and multiply, so 15% of 80 is 0.15 x 80 = 12.

Area and perimeter: rectangle area = length x width, perimeter = 2(length + width); triangle area = 1/2 x base x height.

Average (mean) = sum of values divided by number of values; the median is the middle value once the data is ordered.

Time and rate: distance = speed x time; a 90-minute film starting at 7:40 pm ends at 9:10 pm.

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

Unit conversion: 1 km = 1000 m, 1 m = 100 cm, 1 kg = 1000 g, 1 L = 1000 mL, and 1 hour = 60 minutes.