NAPLAN-style Practice Test 1 — Reading (Year 9)
A free NAPLAN (Years 3, 5, 7 and 9) practice paper for Year 9 in the format of the real test: 48 questions in 65 minutes, covering Section A — Texts 1 to 3; Section B — Texts 4 to 6; Section C — Texts 7 and 8. 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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My father had never been a man for speeches. When the ferry company retired him — a handshake, a cake with his name misspelt in blue icing — he came home, hung his cap on the hook behind the laundry door and did not mention the sea again. Not once, in eleven months.
Instead he took up the garden. He attacked it the way he had once attacked a southerly swell, with his jaw set and his sleeves shoved past the elbow. The lawn surrendered first, then the lemon tree, which he pruned so hard that Mum said it looked like it was apologising for something.
"He's fine," she told me, in the voice she used for weather reports and bad school results. "He's keeping busy."
I believed her, mostly. At fourteen, I had my own tides to worry about.
Then, one Saturday in June, I came home early from netball and found him in the shed. He was not repairing anything. He was sitting on an upturned paint tin with the old brass compass from the ferry's wheelhouse cupped in both hands, turning it slowly, the way you might turn a shell to hear what was inside. The needle swung, shivered and settled. He turned it again. It settled again. North was still exactly where he had left it.
I must have made a sound, because he looked up. For a second his face was completely unguarded, and I saw something in it I had no name for — something like a boy who has been caught reading someone else's letters.
"Bearing's a bit off," he said, and cleared his throat. "Thought I'd have a look at it."
The needle had not been off. We both knew that.
I could have left. That would have been the kind thing, or at least the easy thing, and in our family those had always been treated as the same. Instead I sat down on the step beside him. The shed smelt of two-stroke oil and cut grass and, faintly, underneath it all, of salt, though that may have been my imagination.
"Show me how it works," I said.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he held the compass out, flat on his palm, so that I would have to lean in close to see it.
"First thing," he said. "You never trust it near metal. It'll lie to you." He tapped the paint tin beneath him and almost smiled. "Everything pulls it a little. You have to know what's pulling."
We stayed out there until the light went orange and Mum called us in for tea. Neither of us mentioned the sea. But when I walked past the laundry that night, the cap was gone from its hook.
Q1. The detail that the retirement cake had the father's name "misspelt in blue icing" mainly suggests that
Q2. In the second paragraph the garden is described as if it were an enemy in a battle. Which one word shows that the lawn was the first to give in?
Q3. Mum speaks "in the voice she used for weather reports and bad school results". This suggests that she is
Q4. The narrator compares her father's face to that of "a boy who has been caught reading someone else's letters". This simile shows that he
Q5. What is the effect of the short paragraph "The needle had not been off. We both knew that."?
Q6. The father's advice, "Everything pulls it a little. You have to know what's pulling," can best be read as
Q7. The final sentence, "the cap was gone from its hook", most strongly suggests that
Last month, the council in my town installed "smart" rubbish bins that send an alert when they are full. Nobody objected. Why would they? The bins are cleaner, the trucks drive fewer kilometres, and the footpaths no longer overflow on Monday mornings. It is hard to argue with a bin.
Yet the same small decision, repeated a thousand times, is quietly reshaping the way we live. Our doorbells film the street. Our watches count our heartbeats and report them to companies we have never met. Our cars know where we go, how fast and how often we stop. Each device arrives with a promise — safer, faster, easier — and each promise is, taken on its own, perfectly reasonable.
The problem is that we never take them on their own. Data collected for one purpose has a habit of drifting towards another. Location records gathered to improve traffic lights can reveal who visits a clinic, a place of worship or a union meeting. A fitness app's public map of popular running routes has, in at least one widely reported case, exposed the layout of a secure military base. No single company intended harm. The harm emerged from the sum.
Defenders of this technology say that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. It is a tidy slogan, but it confuses privacy with secrecy. I have nothing to hide in my bathroom, either, yet I still close the door. Privacy is not about concealing wrongdoing; it is about keeping the power to decide who knows what about us, and when.
Nor is it enough to say that we "agreed" to the terms and conditions. A survey by one consumer group found that fewer than one in ten people read those agreements before clicking "accept". Consent that nobody reads is not consent; it is a ritual.
None of this means we should smash our devices and retreat to the bush. It means we should demand that data be collected only for a stated purpose, deleted when that purpose is served, and never sold without a clear, separate choice. These are modest rules. That they sound radical tells us how far we have already drifted.
The bins are fine. It is everything else I am worried about.
Q8. Which statement best expresses the writer's main argument?
Q9. Why does the writer begin with the example of the smart rubbish bins?
Q10. The writer says, "I have nothing to hide in my bathroom, either, yet I still close the door." This comparison is used to
Q11. In paragraph 3, which one word does the writer use for the combined effect of many separate collections of data, which is where the harm comes from?
Q12. "Consent that nobody reads is not consent; it is a ritual." The word "ritual" suggests an action that is
Q13. Which claim in the column is supported by specific evidence rather than by the writer's opinion alone?
Q14. "These are modest rules. That they sound radical tells us how far we have already drifted." What is the writer suggesting?
All summer it was a shout of blue,
a bright tin drum of children,
wet footprints fading on the concrete
faster than we could make them.
Now it lies under a sagging cover,
a green skin puckered with rain,
leaves drowned in the folds
like letters no one will answer.
The diving board juts into nothing.
The lifeguard's chair holds only wind.
Even the sign — NO RUNNING —
seems to have run out of reasons.
I tell myself that this is death,
that everything bright goes under.
But grief is a poor lifeguard:
it watches only the deep end.
Underneath, the water keeps its level,
patient as a held breath.
It is not empty. It is waiting
for the first loud day of spring.
Q15. In line 1, the metaphor "a shout of blue" suggests that in summer the pool was
Q16. The simile "like letters no one will answer" (stanza 2) helps to create a mood of
Q17. What makes the last two lines of stanza 3 effective?
Q18. "But grief is a poor lifeguard: / it watches only the deep end." What is the speaker realising?
Q19. How does the tone of the poem change from beginning to end?
Q20. Which one word in the final stanza tells us that the water is calmly enduring the winter?
My father believed that English could be learnt the way you learn to fillet a fish: by doing it badly a thousand times until one day your hands simply know. He had no time for grammar books. He had a shop.
So at nine years old, three months after we arrived in Melbourne, I was stationed behind the counter of our fish and chip shop with a notepad, a pencil stub and a single instruction: "Listen. Write down every word you don't know. Tonight, you teach me."
It was, I understand now, a brilliant system, and also slightly unfair, because it meant I became the teacher of a man who had once taught me to swim, to fish and to fear nothing except my mother. Every evening we sat at the kitchen table among the smell of vinegar and the hiss of the kettle, and I read out my list. Flake. Dim sim. Potato cake. Ta. Arvo. He repeated each one with enormous seriousness, as though they were the names of saints.
Some words refused to behave. A customer once asked for a burger with "the lot", and I spent a whole evening trying to explain that this meant everything on the burger, not everything in the shop. My father was delighted. "A language that can say everything in two words," he announced, "is a language for a busy man."
I was less delighted. At school, the same words that earned me praise at the kitchen table marked me out. My accent was a coat I could not take off. I learnt to say as little as possible, to answer questions with a nod, to let other children speak for me. I became, for about two years, the quietest boy in Victoria.
It took me a long time to see that my father and I had been learning two different languages. His was a language of welcome: every new word was a door opening onto his new country. Mine was a language of defence, a wall I built one careful brick at a time.
He kept those notebooks, it turns out. I found them after he died, stacked in a shoebox under the stairs, every page in my childish handwriting. On the last one, in his own careful capitals, he had written a single word: PROUD.
Q21. The writer describes his father's method as "slightly unfair" mainly because it
Q22. The father repeats the new words "as though they were the names of saints". This suggests he treats them with
Q23. What does the metaphor "My accent was a coat I could not take off" suggest?
Q24. Which statement best explains the contrast the writer draws in the sixth paragraph?
Q25. In the sixth paragraph the father's English is described as a door. Which one word does the writer use for what his own English became?
Q26. The discovery of the notebooks in the final paragraph mainly reveals that
Q27. The writer's attitude to his younger self is best described as
On some summer nights, the waves breaking on a beach glow an eerie electric blue. Each flash comes from millions of tiny single-celled plankton, and it is an example of bioluminescence: light produced by a living thing. A few insects and fungi on land share the trick, but it is in the sea that bioluminescence is most common. In the deep ocean, where sunlight never reaches, many animals make their own light.
The glow comes from a chemical reaction. Inside special cells, a molecule known as luciferin combines with oxygen. An enzyme called luciferase speeds up this reaction, and the energy released escapes as a tiny burst of light. Some creatures, such as certain squid, do not make these chemicals themselves. Instead, they house colonies of glowing bacteria in special pouches, giving the bacteria food and shelter in return.
This light is remarkably efficient. An old-fashioned light bulb wastes most of its energy as heat, which is why it is hot to touch. Bioluminescence releases almost all of its energy as light, so an animal can glow without warming itself. For this reason, scientists sometimes call it "cold light".
Most ocean bioluminescence is blue or blue-green, and this is no accident. Seawater quickly absorbs red and yellow light, but blue light travels much further through it. Many deep-sea animals cannot see red light at all. A few predatory fish, however, produce a red glow of their own.
Animals use their light in surprising ways. Some shine a dim glow from their bellies that matches the faint light filtering down from above, erasing the shadow that would reveal them to a hunter below. The anglerfish dangles a glowing lure in front of its jaws to tempt curious prey. Certain shrimp, when attacked, spit out a cloud of glowing fluid and slip away while the predator strikes at the light.
So the fire in the sea is not really fire at all. It is chemistry: a cool, carefully controlled light that, in the darkest parts of the ocean, can mean the difference between eating and being eaten.
Q28. What is the main purpose of the third paragraph?
Q29. According to the text, what is the role of luciferase?
Q30. In the fifth paragraph, the word "erasing" suggests that the glow from an animal's belly
Q31. Why might it be an advantage for a predatory fish to produce a red glow?
Q32. Which sentence best summarises the text?
Q33. How does the final paragraph relate to the title, "Cold Fire"?
Good evening, councillors.
I have been told that the Eastbrook Library is "underused". I would like to tell you who uses it.
It is used by Mrs Okafor, who is eighty-one and reads a large-print mystery every week because, as she says, "somebody has to solve them". It is used by the twins from the flats on Carrow Street, who do their homework there because their home has one table and five people. It is used by the man in the grey jacket who comes in every morning at nine, reads the job advertisements and leaves at ten with his head a little higher. You will not find him in your spreadsheet. But he is there.
The report in front of you says the branch costs too much to run. I have read that report. It counts the books borrowed. It does not count the warmth in winter. It does not count the free internet. It does not count the quiet.
Some will say that everything is online now, that libraries belong to the past. But a website cannot notice when a child has been sitting alone for too long. A search engine cannot recommend a book because it remembers what you loved last time. A screen cannot say your name.
Councillors, you were elected to count what matters. So I ask you: what is the price of a place where anyone may walk in, stay as long as they like and never be asked to buy a thing? Is it really more than we can afford? Or is it more than we can afford to lose?
Close this branch, and you will save money this year. Keep it open, and you will save something harder to measure — next year, and the year after that.
Thank you.
Q34. Which one word, quoted from the council in the opening of the speech, does the speaker set out to disprove?
Q35. Why does the speaker describe Mrs Okafor, the twins and the man in the grey jacket?
Q36. The repeated phrase "It does not count..." in the fourth paragraph mainly emphasises
Q37. In the fifth paragraph, the speaker responds to the view that "everything is online now" by arguing that
Q38. "Is it really more than we can afford? Or is it more than we can afford to lose?" These lines are effective mainly because they
Viewpoint A: Let Teenagers Sleep — by a school nurse
Every morning I see the same thing: students slumped over desks at 8.45, not because they are lazy, but because their body clocks are set later than the school bell. During adolescence, the brain begins releasing the sleep hormone melatonin later in the evening, so many teenagers cannot easily fall asleep before about 11 pm. Yet most need around nine hours of sleep. Do the maths: a student who must wake at 6.30 is running a sleep debt before the first lesson begins. Tired students concentrate poorly, are more irritable and are more likely to get sick. Shifting the start of the day by even forty-five minutes would cost almost nothing and could improve learning, mood and wellbeing. We would never teach a class in a room without light. Why do we insist on teaching it half asleep?
Viewpoint B: The Clock Is Not the Problem — by a school principal
I have every sympathy for sleepy students, but moving the bell is not the simple fix it sounds. A later start means a later finish, and that ripples outwards. Buses are shared between primary and secondary schools, so their timetables would need to be rebuilt. Afternoon sport and part-time jobs would be squeezed into shrinking daylight. Parents who drop children off on the way to work would face impossible mornings. And there is a real risk that students would simply stay up later, spending the extra time on screens rather than sleep. Before we reorganise a whole community around the bell, we should tackle the habits we can control: phones out of bedrooms, consistent bedtimes and better sleep education. Change the routine first. Then, if students are still tired, let's talk about the clock.
Q39. Which statement would both writers most likely agree with?
Q40. The nurse claims that a later start "would cost almost nothing". How does the principal's argument respond to this claim?
Q41. The nurse ends with "We would never teach a class in a room without light. Why do we insist on teaching it half asleep?" This ending uses
Q42. The principal's argument depends most heavily on the assumption that
Q43. Which one word in Viewpoint B describes how the effects of a later finish would spread through the community?
Product review: At last, a toaster that needs you
Rating: five stars (pending a firmware update)
For too long, the humble toaster has done its job in silence: bread goes in, toast comes out, nobody gets a notification. Thankfully, those dark days are over. The new ToastSense Pro connects to your home wifi, your phone, your watch and, if you let it, your emotions.
Setup took a mere three hours. After creating an account, confirming my email, agreeing to forty-one pages of terms and choosing a password with at least one capital letter, one number and one ancient rune, I was ready to toast. Or I would have been, had the toaster not needed to download an update first.
Once running, the ToastSense Pro truly shines. Its camera studies each slice and compares it with "millions of reference breads" before deciding on the perfect shade of brown. It then sends me a message asking me to rate the result. When I did not reply quickly enough, it asked whether everything was okay at home.
Some features are only available with a Premium Crust subscription, a bargain at $9.99 a month. Without it, the toaster will still toast — but only on one side, which the company describes as "a curated experience".
Is it perfect? Almost. Yesterday it refused to toast a crumpet, saying crumpets were "not currently supported in your region". I ate it cold, the way our ancestors must have done.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. I have never felt closer to my breakfast.
Q44. What is the main target of this satirical review?
Q45. Why is the rating "five stars (pending a firmware update)" an effective opening?
Q46. In "Setup took a mere three hours", the word "mere" is
Q47. The company describes one-sided toast as "a curated experience". This phrase is an example of
Q48. "I ate it cold, the way our ancestors must have done." The humour of this sentence comes mainly from
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