NAPLAN-style Practice Test 1 — Reading (Year 5)
A free NAPLAN (Years 3, 5, 7 and 9) practice paper for Year 5 in the format of the real test: 39 questions in 50 minutes, covering Section A — Texts 1 to 3; Section B — Texts 4 and 5; Section C — Texts 6 and 7. Read each text, then answer the questions. Try every question. Attempt it online — every question is marked instantly and the correct answers are shown at the end.
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Mira had dragged the kite up Hollow Hill three afternoons in a row, and three afternoons in a row it had flopped onto the grass like a tired fish. Grandpa had built it last winter from thin bamboo and a scrap of red sail, and he had promised that it would "fly like a hawk". So far it had flown like a brick.
"Maybe it's broken," said her little brother, Sam, who had come along mostly to eat biscuits.
"It isn't broken," Mira said, although she was beginning to wonder.
She checked the knots Grandpa had tied. She straightened the tail of blue ribbons. Then she did what Grandpa always did before he went fishing: she licked one finger and held it up. The side facing the gum trees felt cool. The wind was coming from the valley, not from the sea.
"We've been standing on the wrong side of the hill," she whispered.
Mira marched to the top, turned her back to the valley and let out a few metres of string. For a moment nothing happened. Then the grass around her feet began to hiss and bend, and the kite shivered, lifted and leapt into the sky as if someone had called its name.
Sam dropped his biscuit.
The red diamond climbed higher and higher until it was no bigger than a postage stamp. The string hummed in Mira's hands and tugged at her like a dog on a lead. Her arms ached, but she did not let go. Far below, she could see the roof of Grandpa's house and a tiny figure standing in the garden, one hand shading his eyes.
He was waving.
Mira laughed out loud. She couldn't wait to tell him that his hawk had finally found its wings.
Q1. What did Grandpa use to make the kite?
Q2. The writer says the kite "had flopped onto the grass like a tired fish". This suggests that the kite
Q3. Mira whispers, "We've been standing on the wrong side of the hill." What has she just realised?
Q4. How did Mira most likely learn how to test the wind?
Q5. What does the sentence "Sam dropped his biscuit." show about Sam?
Q6. Grandpa promised that the kite would fly like which bird? Write one word from the text.
Q7. How does Mira most likely feel at the end of the extract?
A honeybee hive may look quiet from the outside, but inside it is as busy as a city. In summer, a strong colony can hold as many as 50,000 bees, and every one of them has work to do.
Three kinds of bees
Every colony has just one queen. Her main job is to lay eggs, and in summer she may lay up to 2,000 in a single day. Male bees are called drones. They do not collect food or build the hive; their role is to mate with a queen from another colony. All the other bees are workers, and every worker is female.
A worker's busy life
A worker bee born in summer lives for only about six weeks, and she changes jobs as she grows older. Young workers clean the cells, feed the larvae (baby bees that look like small white grubs) and build honeycomb from wax made in their own bodies. Older workers guard the entrance. Finally, they fly out as foragers to collect nectar and pollen.
Talking by dancing
When a forager finds a good patch of flowers, she returns to the hive and performs a "waggle dance". The direction of the dance tells the other bees which way to fly, and the length of the waggle shows how far away the flowers are.
Why bees matter
As bees move from flower to flower, they carry pollen, which helps plants make fruit and seeds. Many foods that people eat, such as apples, almonds and pumpkins, depend on bees for pollination. European honeybees were brought to Australia in the 1800s, and today they are an important part of farming across the country.
Q8. What is the main purpose of this text?
Q9. According to the text, what is the queen bee's main job?
Q10. What name is given to male honeybees? Write one word from the text.
Q11. Which job does a worker bee usually do last in her life?
Q12. In the waggle dance, what does the length of the waggle tell the other bees?
Q13. The text is divided into parts with headings such as "Talking by dancing". How do these headings help the reader?
Dear Principal Harlow and members of the School Council,
I am writing to ask you to turn the empty patch of ground behind the library into a school vegetable garden. I believe it would be the best thing to happen to our school in years.
First, a garden would help us learn. In Year 5 we are studying living things, and there is no better classroom than a garden bed full of worms, seeds and sunflowers. We could measure how fast beans grow in maths and write about our harvest in English.
Second, a garden would help us eat well. Children who grow vegetables are often more willing to taste them. Who could say no to a crunchy carrot they pulled out of the ground themselves?
Third, a garden would bring our community together. My grandmother, who has grown tomatoes for forty years, has already offered to help, and so have several other families.
Some people say a garden would cost too much. However, the hardware store on Bank Street has offered us free soil, and our class could raise the money for seeds with a cake stall.
At the moment, that patch of ground is nothing but weeds and broken bricks. Please let us turn it into something green, useful and alive.
Yours sincerely,
Leo Tran, Year 5
Q14. Why did Leo write this letter?
Q15. Where does Leo want the garden to be?
Q16. Why does Leo ask, "Who could say no to a crunchy carrot they pulled out of the ground themselves?"
Q17. Which of these is an opinion rather than a fact?
Q18. Some people say a garden would cost too much. How does Leo respond to this?
Q19. Why does Leo begin three paragraphs with "First", "Second" and "Third"?
The sky has pulled its grey coat on
and buttoned up the sun;
the cattle crowd beneath the gums,
the magpies, every one.
The wind comes galloping down the hill,
it rattles every gate,
it snatches washing from the line
and will not stop or wait.
Then thunder growls, a hungry dog,
and lightning cracks its whip;
the first fat raindrops smack the tin
like drummers, drip by drip.
And when at last the storm has gone,
the dams are brimming high,
the paddocks drink, the frogs rejoice,
and blue creeps back to sky.
Q20. "The sky has pulled its grey coat on / and buttoned up the sun" means that
Q21. In the second verse, which word shows that the wind moves like a running horse? Write one word from the poem.
Q22. In the last verse, "the dams are brimming high". The word "brimming" means
Q23. How is the poem organised?
Q24. How does the mood of the poem change in the last verse?
Goal: To watch a bean seed sprout and grow a root and a shoot.
You will need:
• 1 clean glass jar
• 3 or 4 paper towels
• 2 dried broad beans
• water
• a marker pen
Steps:
1. Soak the beans in a cup of water overnight. This softens their hard outer coat.
2. Fold the paper towels and push them into the jar so that they line the inside of the glass.
3. Slide the beans between the glass and the paper towel, about halfway down the jar. Place them far apart so you can see each one clearly.
4. Pour a little water into the bottom of the jar until the paper towel is damp all over. Do not let the beans sit in water, or they may rot.
5. Put the jar in a warm, bright spot, but not in direct sunlight.
6. Check your beans every day. Add a few drops of water whenever the paper towel starts to feel dry.
7. Each day, use the marker pen to draw a line on the glass level with the tip of the shoot.
What to expect: After two to four days, a small white root will poke out of each bean. Soon after, a green shoot will appear and grow upwards towards the light.
Tip: Try laying the jar on its side for a day. The root will bend so that it keeps growing downwards!
Q25. Why should the beans be soaked overnight?
Q26. Step 4 warns that if the beans sit in water, they may do what? Write one word from the text.
Q27. Why are the steps numbered?
Q28. What is the most likely reason for drawing a line on the glass each day?
Q29. According to "What to expect", which part of the bean appears first?
Edith Carrow was born in 1942 on a wheat farm near a small inland town. As a child, she was fascinated by the flocks of birds that gathered at the farm dam each evening. At the age of nine, she began keeping a notebook in which she recorded every bird she saw, along with the date and the weather.
Her family could not afford many books, so Edith borrowed a bird guide from the town library. She borrowed it so often that the librarian finally gave it to her as a birthday present.
After finishing school, Edith trained as a science teacher. For more than thirty years she taught in country schools, and she took her students outside whenever she could. "You cannot learn about birds from a blackboard," she liked to say.
In 1978, Edith noticed that the number of small wading birds visiting a local swamp had fallen sharply. She shared her notebooks, which by then filled four shelves, with scientists. Her careful records helped to show that the swamp was slowly drying out, and the area was later protected as a wildlife reserve.
Edith never stopped counting. When she died in 2021, she left behind 212 notebooks. Today they are kept in a museum, and young birdwatchers still visit to see where it all began.
Q30. Edith borrowed a bird guide from which place in the town? Write one word from the text.
Q31. In 1978 the number of wading birds "had fallen sharply". This means the number had
Q32. Edith liked to say, "You cannot learn about birds from a blackboard." This shows she believed that
Q33. Which of these events happened before Edith became a teacher?
Q34. What is the main message of this life story?
Crocodiles and alligators look so alike that many people mix them up. Both are large reptiles with scaly skin, powerful tails and strong jaws, and their ancestors lived alongside the dinosaurs. However, if you know what to look for, telling them apart is easy.
The simplest clue is the snout. An alligator has a wide, rounded snout shaped like the letter U. A crocodile's snout is longer and more pointed, like the letter V.
Next, look at the teeth. When an alligator closes its mouth, its lower teeth are mostly hidden. When a crocodile closes its mouth, some of its lower teeth, including a large fourth tooth on each side, can still be seen. This gives it a toothy "grin".
Where they live is another difference. Alligators are found only in the south-east of the United States and in China, and they prefer fresh water such as rivers and swamps. Crocodiles live in many warm parts of the world. Some can even survive in salt water, because special glands on their tongues get rid of extra salt.
Australia has two kinds of crocodile, the freshwater crocodile and the saltwater crocodile, but no alligators at all. So if you ever spot one of these reptiles in the wild in northern Australia, you can be sure it is a crocodile!
Q35. What is the main purpose of this text?
Q36. According to the text, what shape is a crocodile's snout?
Q37. Why does the writer put the word "grin" in inverted commas?
Q38. Why are some crocodiles able to survive in salt water?
Q39. A reptile with a wide, rounded snout and hidden lower teeth is seen in a swamp in China. What is it most likely to be?
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