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NAPLAN 2025: Complete Guide & Topic Breakdown for Year 7 and 9

Get a comprehensive breakdown of the 2025 NAPLAN assessments, including exam structure, key topics, and preparation strategies. Essential reading for students aiming for selective entry or scholarship schools.

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NAPLAN 2025 Guide

NAPLAN is a crucial assessment, particularly for students applying to selective entry or scholarship schools. These institutions take a comprehensive approach to evaluating academic performance, considering both school reports and NAPLAN results. A strong NAPLAN score can significantly enhance your chances of securing a place at your preferred school.


Key Information

The 2025 NAPLAN will be conducted between March 12th and March 24th. Schools will schedule the tests within this window, so it's essential to be prepared and perform at your best.


Assessment Structure

The NAPLAN consists of five distinct assessments:

AssessmentFormatDurationQuestionsTime per Question
WritingWritten42 min142 min
ReadingMCQ65 min5072 seconds
Language ConventionsMCQ/Short45 min5847 seconds
Numeracy (Calculator and Non-Calculator)MCQ/Short65 min4882 seconds

Topic Breakdown

Writing

Common writing tasks include:

  • Narrative Writing
  • Persuasive Writing
  • Informative Writing

Note: Informative Writing rarely appears


Reading

The Reading assessment focuses on paragraph questions from various text types:

  • Informative texts
  • Persuasive texts
  • Imaginative texts
  • Poems

Students are provided with a "magazine" containing all passages needed to answer the questions.


Language Conventions

Heavy Emphasis on:

  • Correct Spelling Mistakes
    • Correcting circled spelling errors
    • NAPLAN 2025 Guide
    • Finding and correcting spelling errors
    • NAPLAN 2025 Guide
  • Complete the sentence
  • Correct Punctuation
  • Identifying correct sentences

Less Emphasis on:

  • Synonyms
  • Information Deduction
  • Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs

Numeracy (Calculator and Non-Calculator)

Key topics include:

  • Basics
  • Probability
  • Statistics
  • Linear Equations
  • Pythagoras Theorem
  • Algebra
  • Measurement
  • Financial Math
  • Rates and Proportions
  • Mystery Number
  • Time
  • Geometry
  • Indices

Strong emphasis on:

  • Numbers and Algebra
  • Measurement and Geometry
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Financial Math

Most questions are presented as word problems. For example:

"Sam rents a truck from a hire company. The cost to rent the truck is directly proportional to the number of kilometres driven. The rental cost to drive 200 km is $87.50. What is the rental cost to drive 80 kilometres?"


Key Techniques

NAPLAN's timing structure differs significantly from selective entry exams for selective you are given 30 seconds per question therefore, you have more time per question in NAPLAN.


Additional Resources

You can access previous NAPLAN exams from 2012-2016 on the ACARA website.