Private school scholarship tests: ACER, Edutest and AAS

What each provider's test looks like

ACER — built around written expression, mathematics and humanities-style reading, with separate papers for primary and secondary entry. Reasoning is assessed through the way questions are framed rather than as its own labelled section.

Edutest — the most segmented of the three: five separately timed sections, including dedicated verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning components alongside reading comprehension, mathematics and a shorter written task.

AAS — folds verbal, figural and numerical reasoning into a single integrated Reasoning and Problem Solving section of roughly sixty questions, rather than testing each strand separately.

Providers review their formats from time to time; confirm the current structure with the school or the provider before you plan around it.

The mistake that costs families a place

Results do not transfer between providers. Sitting an ACER test does not give you a result an Edutest school can use. If your child is applying to several schools, check which provider each one uses before you book anything — you may be sitting two or three tests, on different weekends, in different formats.

Ask the school's registrar, or look at the scholarship page on the school's own site. The provider is usually named there.

What's common to all three

Underneath the formatting differences, the same four things are being measured:

• Reading comprehension — inference and interpretation, not recall
• Mathematics — problem solving under time pressure more than technique
• Reasoning — verbal, numerical and often figural; not curriculum content
• Written expression — a short piece under a tight time limit

A child prepared for one provider is not starting from zero at another. What changes is the pacing and the question style.

A note on timing

Scholarship testing generally runs in the first months of the year for entry the following year, but each school sets its own dates and some run additional rounds. The school's own scholarship page is the only reliable source for its timetable.

Related guides:

• The OC test, explained
• Selective vs OC: what's the difference?