1. This sentence has ONE spelling mistake:
"The bottom drawer holds miscelaneous cables."
Type the correct spelling of the misspelt word.
Free Year 7 NAPLAN Conventions of Language practice
Fifty-two questions in 45 minutes: 25 spelling and 27 grammar and punctuation.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
The paper that has not changed since Year 3
Conventions is the same specification at every NAPLAN year level. A Year 7 student is sitting a paper with the same question count, the same time and the same split as the one they sat in Year 3.
Only the difficulty has moved, which means the pace has not. Fifty-two questions in 45 minutes is a little under a minute each, and it has been that way for four years.
What Year 7 adds
Spelling moves into morphology: words assembled from a prefix, a root and a suffix, where the joins are what go wrong. Subject vocabulary from science and humanities starts appearing, spelled by patterns from Latin and Greek rather than by English sound rules.
Grammar moves to clause-level work: how clauses relate, what a conjunction is doing, and agreement across longer sentences. Punctuation questions increasingly turn on meaning rather than correctness. What does the comma change, and why does the apostrophe belong there?
Where Year 7 students lose marks
- Proofreading, still. It is the smaller part of the spelling section, since most of it is dictation, but it stays the least practised skill in the paper.
- Double letters at morpheme joins, as in unnecessary and irresistible
- Commas that change meaning, as opposed to commas in lists
- Its and it's, which is worth naming because it costs marks at every year level including this one
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: miscellaneous
The misspelt word is 'miscelaneous' — it should be 'miscellaneous'.
The l is doubled in the middle: mis-cel-la-ne-ous.
The ending is -eous, keeping the e before the ous.
'miscellaneous' is the correct spelling.
2. Which sentence punctuates the question inside the speech marks correctly?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A
The words spoken are a question, so a question mark closes them, inside the speech marks.
That question mark already does the job the comma would do, so no comma is added after it.
The reporting clause belongs to the same sentence, so asked stays lower case.
The correct version is: "Are we nearly there?" asked Mia.
3. Each word below is printed a particular way. Pair it with the reason.
Question 3 — match each one to its pair
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer:
- a book title in slanted type → it names a whole published work
- a glossary word in heavy type → its meaning is set out elsewhere in the book
- a word inside quotation marks → the writer is holding the word at arm's length
Take the left-hand items one at a time and say what each one is actually doing.
Then find the description on the right that says exactly that.
One description on the right is left over — check it fits none of them.
a book title in slanted type → it names a whole published work · a glossary word in heavy type → its meaning is set out elsewhere in the book · a word inside quotation marks → the writer is holding the word at arm's length
How our practice differs from the real test
Our papers open with the 25 spelling questions, 16 of them dictated with a recording to play, so have headphones ready. The spelling questions lock once your child moves on to grammar and punctuation.
Some questions ask your child to match pairs or choose more than one answer. The real test is adaptive, and our papers cover the same content in a single pass.
Common questions
How long is the Year 7 NAPLAN Conventions of Language test?
Fifty-two questions in 45 minutes.
Is the spelling section like a school spelling test?
No. Most of it is dictated, so your child hears the word in a sentence and types it. The rest asks your child to find a misspelt word and fix it.
Practise free, no account needed. Every paper is marked the moment your child finishes, with a worked solution on every question.
Free practice draws from a limited set of questions, so some will repeat. Subscribers get the full question bank and fewer repeats.
Meritly is an independent Australian service and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the organisations that write or run the tests we cover.