NAPLAN — Year 9 Literacy
Set 4 — Sample Reading test answers
About the sample Reading tests
The QSA recommends that teachers administer these units as mini-tests during the fortnight before the NAPLAN test week
to familiarise students with the question and answer formats and with the test conditions.
Make sure students know the following:
• The real NAPLAN test will have about 50 questions and about eight different texts
• The test conditions require silent, individual work without any assistance by the teacher.
• They need to read everything (texts, questions and all options in each question) to answer properly. Answering from
their prior subject knowledge will not work.
• Most questions require them to fill out one bubble only to show which of 4 options is the best answer. They must read
the question then re-read the parts of the text that have the answer. Next look at all four of the options and decide
which one correctly completes the statement or answers the question. Use a pencil that can be erased if you make a
mistake.
• There will be a few questions requiring them to write a sentence or two. It is very important that they make an attempt
to write something and to answer as well as they can.
Students should be aware that questions are not only about simple comprehension. They set different tasks and are at
different levels of difficulty. Questions are of three main types, categorised in the NAPLAN reports as TLI (Text location and
interpretation), TLK (Text and language knowledge) and CU (Contextual understanding). This means students should
expect questions that ask them to
• simply recognise an idea from the text stated in different words in the answer key
• make an inference from what the text states
• make judgements about what the text says or how it is written.
Teaching resources
Teachers might talk through these sample Reading tests with the students and use the test questions as a way to model
the mental processes that skilled readers use.
Show students text analysis strategies and techniques such as
• “key word in the margin” (e.g. students write in notes such as “new section starts here”, “causes explained here”)
• making inferences about the meaning beyond the literal meaning
• thinking about the author’s purposes
• evaluating the usefulness, persuasiveness or the artistic quality of language choices
• applying the ideas or information in the text to other contexts.
Answers
Drooling autotrophs?
1 C; 2 D; 3 A; 4 D; 5 B; 6 D; 7 C
Nantucket
8 A; 9 D; 10*; 11 C; 12 C; 13 B; 14 B; 15 D; 16 A; 17 C; 18*
Antony’s eulogy
19 B; 20 C; 21 C; 22 B; 23 D; 24 B; 25 D; 26 A; 27 C; 28 A; 29 D
*Model responses to write-in (short response) questions
Question 10 Nantucket
Model response:
Nantucket cannot sustain trees.
Question 18 (i) Nantucket
Model response:
A whale boat crew has harpooned a whale which is dragging the boat by the rope attached to the harpoon.
Question 18 (ii) Nantucket
Model response:
A dragged boat is like a pulled sleigh. The whale drags the boat through water, just as draft animals (horse,
reindeer or dogs) pull a sleigh through snow. A sleigh ride is a happy thing but whaling is terrifying, so the name
“sleigh ride” is a form of black humour.
Nantucket was the most internationally famous whaling port, so, Nantucket sleigh ride, meant A whaler’s “sleigh
ride”.
Teaching notes
Drooling autotrophs?
Use the etymology of biological terms used in this text for vocabulary teaching. Year 9 students should apply an
expanding vocabulary (Australian Curriculum, English, ACELY1743).
Ask students questions about how informational writing focuses on relationships of cause and effect, origin and
development, class and sub-class etc. Draw attention to the use of conjunctions and pronouns in this and other
information text (ACELA1551).
Nantucket
In the Australian Curriculum, English, Year 9 students are expected to recognise the appeal of literary texts and
analyse literary language (e.g. ACELT1636 and ACELT1772).
Question: How is this text different from non-literary descriptions?
Guide: The literary appeal and language of Melville’s description of Nantucket contrast with the way the island
would be described for the purposes of tourists or geographers. Similarly, technical or political or historical
descriptions of whaling would also be different. Ask students questions to explore how language choices would
change to suit these different purposes.
One way to draw attention to the literary language in the excerpt is to point out that it has some elements of
information writing but uses them to evoke feelings rather than to give facts. For example, the text gives the
information that Nantucket is small and remote and dominated by the sea. It also gives a sort of history in which
inhabitants of Nantucket became more able to exploit the sea. But in giving this information, Melville is making the
reader feel how unusual are the people who adapted to this sea life. At first, he makes us laugh at how the island is
lacking in any resources and by the end he makes us wonder at the resourcefulness of the people.
Like literature, painting has the purpose of evoking feelings. Ask students to compare the extracted text with the
painting shown in question 18 of the question sheet. Guide students to find similarities. For example:
Question: What is similar about the presentation of whaling in the painting shown as part of question 18 on the
question sheet and the presentation of whaling in Melville's description? How do they show the whale? How do they
make us feel about the whalers?
Guide: The illustration and the description both depict whaling as violent for the whale and extremely dangerous
for the whalers because of the small boats and the great power of a wounded and frenzied whale.
Question: What parts of the text and picture convey this?
Guide: Melville calls whaling a “war”. As if to illustrate this idea, the whaler in the prow of the boat in the picture
looks determined but terrified. Melville's description of the “unconscious power” and dreadful “panics” of whales
is shown by the way the little boat is dragged through the water.
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Antony’s eulogy
Students below Year 10 are likely to find this text very difficult to comprehend without prior teaching.
Read out and fully explain the introduction in italics at the top of the extract. Explain the context of the historic
murder of Julius Caesar and the context of the speech within Shakespeare’s play.
Before they read, students should be given an opportunity to watch a performance of the whole “Friends, Romans,
countrymen” speech from Julius Caesar (late in Act 3, scene 2) and also to hear Brutus’s interaction with Antony
and the speech that Brutus delivers to the crowd before Antony speaks to them. The performance by Marlon
Brando, for example, is on You Tube. Informal acting by students would also help to make the drama
understandable.
The Australian Curriculum expects students to understand that English has a history of change (ACELA1550).
(Students who want to talk like a pirate or like a peasant at a Medieval Fair should be interested in the main
features of the English of four hundred years ago.) English has been evolving toward grammatical simplification.
English has simplified its verb formation over the years. Older English had many verb inflections. In Shakespeare’s
time, there were still -est and -t endings to mark the tense of verbs linked to the pronoun thou (thou sayest, thou
shalt say, thou didst say, thou art saying) and -th for present tense verbs linked to the pronouns he and she (he
hath).
Regarding changes in vocabulary, students would not be surprised that words change. It is worth noting also that
words that seem familiar might have had different meanings in the past, as is the case in this excerpt with the
words griefs and love.
Julius Caesar can be compared with other historical dramas. This would help Year 9 students to study how literary
texts draw from historical, social and cultural contexts (ACELT1633). Shakespeare’s plays with classical settings
were made possible because knowledge of classical Greece and Rome was rediscovered by western countries in
the Renaissance. For Elizabethans, stories of great figures of antiquity offered images of both nobility and
sensational violence. Writers also wished to imitate and exceed the literary skill of classical authors.
The literary value (ACELT1634) of the speech could be judged by the quality of the images and poetry that
Shakespeare puts into Antony’s mouth (ACELT1636). Antony uses literary devices (see ACELA1552) to heighten the
emotional effect of Caesar’s death (see the imagery of wounds in lines 29–35).
Shakespeare’s skill in creating character is demonstrated by his portrait of Antony as politically crafty. He makes
Antony a superb master of the art of rhetoric.
The effect of persuasive language in spoken oratory (ACELY1740) can be explored best by watching a performance
of this speech.
Historical reflection about oratory in political debate could be prompted by this depiction of republican Rome
(ACELT1635). Students could also reflect on the definition of oratory that is implied in lines 27–8: “wit, words” and
“worth.” This alludes to the “appeals” of classical rhetoric; that is, appeals to people’s emotions, to their
reasoning and to their respect for the authority of the speaker.
The rhetorical irony used in Antony’s speech can be compared with other persuasive techniques (see ACELA1551).
There is the technique of showing yourself as believable and as being the same as the people you are trying to
persuade. Antony claims that the audience are his friends and equals (although he is actually well-known to them
only because he is a famous general). He says he is speaking plainly, unlike Brutus who uses oratory. This itself is
an example of Antony’s mastery of oratory!
The text structure and organisation of a eulogy (see ACELT1772) is both used and abandoned by Antony as he
moulds his speech to his political purposes. This is an example of what the ACE means by “innovation” (see
ACELA1553).
Writing activity to apply techniques
Students could be asked to write a short explanation of one of the persuasive techniques used in the speech
(ACELT1771) or a longer analysis of the scene. Students could write their own speech (ACELY1746) using
techniques studied in these lessons. For example, they could write a brief speech that praises or condemns a
fictional character. If a eulogy or a condemnatory speech is set, the subject could be light-hearted to avoid
sensitivities, e.g. a eulogy for a “dead” car, mobile phone or television set (ACELT1773).
Queensland Studies Authority
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Resources
Resources on the QSA website that may be useful include:
• Poster: In the book or in your head — www.qsa.qld.edu.au/1443.html
• Teacher’s notes: Locating information — www.qsa.qld.edu.au/1443.html
• Poster: Thinking about a story — www.qsa.qld.edu.au/1443.html
• Teaching reading and viewing: Comprehension strategies — www.qsa.qld.edu.au/yr9-english-resources.html
• Framework for Reading items — www.qsa.qld.edu.au/1443.html.
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